Kathryn Tyson, Kelly Campa, Annika Ganzeveld, Siddhant Kishore, Katherine Wells, Andie Parry, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

Recent Iranian polls show that moderate Masoud Pezeshkian is leading over ultraconservative hardliner Saeed Jalili in the Iranian presidential race. The runoff election will occur on July 5. The Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) published a poll on July 4 showing that Pezeshkian has a 5.6 percent lead over Jalili. ISPA notably predicted accurately that Pezeshkian and Jalili would win the highest and second highest number of votes, respectively, in the first round of voting on June 28. ISPA also correctly predicted that pragmatic hardliner Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf would receive significantly less votes than Pezeshkian and Jalili. The July 4 ISPA poll is consistent with CTP-ISW's observation on July 1 that Pezeshkian appears to be gaining momentum ahead of the July 5 runoff election.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei must decide whether he will permit Pezeshkian to win the election if Pezeshkian wins the most votes. Khamenei recently expressed foreign and nuclear policy views on June 25 that closely align with Jalili’s views, suggesting that Khamenei endorses Jalili. Khamenei furthermore indirectly criticized Pezeshkian’s campaign policies on the same date. Khamenei’s opposition to some of Pezeshkian’s policies could lead him to directly intervene in the upcoming election and install Jalili as president.

Israel and Hamas have resumed negotiations over a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Qatar sent Hamas on June 25 a revised ceasefire proposal that was based on an earlier US-backed proposal. The new proposal includes several unspecified amendments to the original text. Hamas has reviewed the new proposal and sent its response to Israel. Israeli leaders plan to discuss the Hamas response and send a delegation for further discussions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a phone call with US President Joe Biden on July 4 to discuss the new proposal.

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Recent Iranian polls show that moderate Masoud Pezeshkian is leading over ultraconservative Saeed Jalili in the Iranian presidential race.

• Gaza Strip: Israel and Hamas have resumed negotiations over a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Significant obstacles remain to securing a ceasefire agreement.

• Lebanon: Iran and the Axis of Resistance are conducting an information operation meant to prevent Israel from launching a major military offensive into Lebanon. 

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ISW–CTP has launched an interactive map of Israeli ground operations to accompany our daily campaign assessments of the Israel–Hamas war. This product complements the daily static maps that ISW-CTP produces with high-fidelity and, where possible, street-level assessments of the war in Israel.

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