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A state funeral service is under way in Iran for about 60 people, including military commanders, killed in Israeli attacks, with thousands joining the ceremony in the capital, Tehran.

State TV showed footage of people donning black clothes, waving Iranian flags and holding pictures of the slain head of the Revolutionary Guard, other top commanders and nuclear scientists in the ceremony that started at 8am (04:30 GMT) on Saturday.

Images from central Tehran showed coffins draped in Iranian flags and bearing portraits of the deceased commanders in uniform.

The United States had carried out strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last weekend, joining its ally Israel’s bombardments of Iran in the 12-day war launched on June 13.

Both Israel and Iran claimed victory in the war that ended with a ceasefire on Tuesday, with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei downplaying the US strikes, claiming Trump had “exaggerated events in unusual ways”, and rejecting US claims that Iran’s nuclear programme had been set back by decades.

The coffins of the Guard’s chief General Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard’s ballistic missile programme, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, and others were driven on trucks along the capital’s Azadi Street as people in the crowds chanted: “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

Salami and Hajizadeh were both killed on the first day of the war, which Israel said was meant to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme.

Mohammad Bagheri, a major-general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as well as top nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi were also killed in Israeli attacks.

Saturday’s ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefire, and Iranian state television reported that they were for 60 people in total, including four women and four children.

Authorities closed government offices to allow public servants to attend the ceremonies.

War of words

The state funeral comes a day after US President Donald Trump launched a tirade on his Truth Social platform, blasting Khamenei for claiming in a video address that Iran had won the war.

Trump also claimed to have known “EXACTLY where he (Khamenei) was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces… terminate his life”.

He claimed he had been working in recent days on the possible removal of sanctions against Iran, but he dropped it after Khamenei’s remarks.

Hitting back at Trump on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X: “If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader.”

Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said Araghchi’s remarks were “a most expected reaction” to Trump’s social media posts.

“Many Iranian people regard him [Khamenei] as chiefly a religious leader, but according to the constitution, he’s not only that – he’s the political leader, he’s the military leader – he’s simply the head of state in Iran,” he said.

Serdar also said Khamenei’s position is not just the top of a hierarchy, but a divine role in Shia political theology.

“Not only in Iran, but across the world, we know there are a significant number of Shia who look for his guidance,” Serdar said. “Anyone who knows that would be meticulously careful not to publicly criticise him, and particularly not to accuse him of lying.”

No nuclear talks planned

There was no immediate sign of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the state broadcast of the funeral.

Khamenei, who has not made a public appearance since before the outbreak of the war, has in past funerals held prayers for fallen commanders over their coffins before the open ceremonies, later aired on state television.

During the 12 days before the ceasefire, Israel claimed it killed about 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, while hitting eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites.

Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted, but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people, according to Israeli figures.

The Israeli attacks on Iran killed at least 627 civilians, Tehran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education said.

After the US strikes, Trump said negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme for a new deal were set to restart next week, but Tehran denied there were plans for a resumption.

Iran’s parliament has passed a bill that would effectively suspend the country’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as Iran insists it will not give up its civilian nuclear programme in the wake of massive attacks on the country by Israel and the United States.

The move on Wednesday comes after a US and Qatar-brokered ceasefire between Iran and Israel ended 12 days of fierce hostilities – including an intensive US military intervention that struck three Iranian nuclear facilities on Sunday.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that parliament voted to suspend – but not end – cooperation with the IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

He said the US had “torpedoed diplomacy” and could no longer be trusted, citing extensive damage to nuclear infrastructure. He reaffirmed Iran’s right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Addressing the parliamentary bill, Baghaei said it sets conditions for Iran’s future engagement with the IAEA, including guarantees for the safety and security of Iranian scientists and nuclear facilities.

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf criticised the IAEA for having “refused to even pretend to condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities” that the US carried out.

“For this reason, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will suspend cooperation with the IAEA until security of nuclear facilities is ensured, and Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme will move forward at a faster pace,” Ghalibaf told lawmakers.

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme was peaceful, and both US intelligence agencies and the IAEA had concluded that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said he had already written to Iran to discuss resuming inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities.

Iran claims to have moved its highly enriched uranium ahead of the US strikes, and Grossi said his inspectors need to reassess the country’s stockpiles. “We need to return,” he said. “We need to engage.”

But given that Tehran has castigated Grossi for the IAEA’s censure of Iran the day before Israel attacked on June 13, and his subsequent comments during the conflict, that seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said it is “clear that Iran’s nuclear programme will continue despite everything that has happened”.

Hashem said the bill will now go to the Guardian Council, which will study it “legally and religiously”.

“If there is consensus in the body, the bill will go to the Supreme National Security Council to be approved and finally to the government to become policy,” he added.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described Iran’s decision as a direct consequence of the US and Israeli attacks on its nuclear sites.

‘Disgraceful, despicable’

US intelligence officials have assessed the strikes as a targeted operation with limited effectiveness, saying the US bombings had only set Tehran’s nuclear programme back by a few months.

The findings are at odds with US President Donald Trump’s claims about the strikes. Trump has insisted that the nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan were “obliterated” by a combination of bunker-busting and conventional bombs.

Meanwhile, the fragile truce between Israel and Iran appeared to be holding on Wednesday following a rocky start.

Trump told reporters at a NATO summit that it was going “very well”, insisting that Iran was “not going to have a bomb and they’re not going to enrich”.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the ceasefire agreement with Iran amounted to “quiet for quiet”, with no further understandings about Iran’s nuclear programme going ahead.

In Iran, health officials said the number of Iranians killed in Israeli strikes has risen to 627, while the number of those wounded stood at 4,870.

Other signs of life returning to relative normality in Iran came as officials said they will ease internet restrictions that were put in place since the conflict began nearly two weeks ago.

“The communication network is gradually returning to its previous state,” said the cybersecurity command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement carried by state media.

A spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Roads and Urban Development said that Iran’s airspace will reopen at 2pm local time (10:30 GMT) on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Trump said US and Iranian officials are due to speak next week, continuing a dialogue that was interrupted by Israel’s attack and the subsequent conflict.

“I’ll tell you what, we’re going to talk with them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Trump told reporters.

Separately, Iran slammed NATO chief Mark Rutte’s praise of Trump for the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“It is disgraceful, despicable and irresponsible for [NATO’s secretary-general] to congratulate a ‘truly extraordinary’ criminal act of aggression against a sovereign state,” Baghaei wrote on the X platform.

Separately, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday that the head of the IRGC command centre, Ali Shadmani, died of wounds sustained during Israel’s military strikes on the country. The command centre vowed “harsh revenge” for his killing, state media added.

Israel had said on June 17 that it killed Shadmani, who it says it ascertained was Iran’s wartime chief of staff and most senior military commander.

The grand military parade that United States President Donald Trump had been wanting for years barrelled down Washington, DC’s Constitution Avenue, with tanks, troops and a 21-gun salute, the spectacle played out against a counterpoint of protests around the country by those who decried the Republican leader as a “dictator” and “would-be king”.

Trump, also celebrating his 79th birthday, sat on a special viewing stand south of the White House to watch the display of US military might, which began early on Saturday and moved swiftly as light rain fell and clouds shrouded the Washington Monument.

The procession, with more than 6,000 soldiers and 128 tanks, was one Trump tried to hold in his first term after seeing such an event in Paris in 2017, but the plan never came together until the parade was added to an event recognising the US Army’s 250th anniversary.

As armoured vehicles rolled down the street in front of the president, millions of people packed into streets, parks and plazas across the US as part of the so-called “No Kings” protests, marching through city centres and small towns, blaring anti-authoritarian chants mixed with support for protecting democracy and immigrant rights.

Authorities across the US urged calm and promised no tolerance for violence, while some governors mobilised the National Guard ahead of the demonstrations.

Police in Los Angeles, where protests over federal immigration enforcement raids erupted a week ago, used tear gas and crowd-control munitions to clear out protesters after the formal event ended. Officers in Portland city also fired tear gas and projectiles to disperse a crowd that protested in front of a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building well into Saturday evening.

Huge, boisterous crowds marched, danced, drummed and chanted shoulder-to-shoulder in New York City, Denver, Chicago, Austin and Los Angeles, some behind “No Kings” banners. Atlanta’s 5,000-capacity event quickly reached its limit, with thousands more gathered outside barriers to hear speakers in front of the state Capitol. Officials in Seattle estimated that more than 70,000 people attended the city’s largest rally in the city centre, the Seattle Times reported.

The demonstrations came on the heels of protests over the federal ICE raids which began last week, and Trump’s order for the US National Guard and Marines to be deployed to Los Angeles, where protesters blocked a motorway and set cars on fire.

“Today, across red states and blue, rural towns and major cities, Americans stood in peaceful unity and made it clear: we don’t do kings,” the No Kings Coalition said in a statement on Saturday.

OAKMONT, Pa. — Sam Burns only wobbled twice on a soggy Oakmont course Saturday and held his nerve with a great lag from just inside 60 feet on the final hole for a one-under 69, leaving him one round away from a U.S. Open title and no margin for error.

Burns, who has never contended in his 20 previous majors, next takes on the Sunday pressure of golf’s most stringent test alongside Adam Scott, the 44-year-old Australian and the only player among the top 10 with experience winning a major.

Scott, whose lone major was 12 years ago at the Masters, didn’t make a mistake since a soft bogey on the opening hole and looked far younger than his 44 years down the stretch with brilliant iron play and enough putts for a 67, leaving him one shot behind.

This was shaping up to be a wild chase to the finish, with only four players under par. That starts with Burns at four-under 206. He has five PGA Tour titles, the last one more than two years ago. He is coming off a playoff loss last week in the Canadian Open.

J.J. Spaun, who lost in a playoff at The Players Championship in March, kept pace with Burns throughout the back nine until the end, when he couldn’t save par from a bunker and shot 69. He joined Scott a shot behind.

“It seemed like we were kind of back and forth,” Spaun said. “He would take the lead, I would take the lead, I would fall back, whatever. But it was fun. You can’t really play against your opponent; you got to play this course. There’s just so much on demand with every shot.”

The other survivor to par was Viktor Hovland, who has been smiling as much as anyone on a course that has been exasperating to so many all week. Hovland salvaged a bogey from an opening tee shot into the bushes and an exquisite shot off the muddy cart path.

But he hit the pin on the uphill ninth hole for birdie and hit an amazing wedge from the cabbage left of the 17th green for a tap-in birdie. He closed with a bogey from the rain-soaked rough on the 18th for a 70 and was three behind.

“I’m well aware that I’ve got a chance tomorrow, and if I shoot a low round of golf tomorrow then anything can happen,” Hovland said. “But there’s a lot of good players around me. Adam Scott played a brilliant round today, just didn’t really miss a shot. That forces me to play some really good golf tomorrow.”

Carlos Ortiz turned in one of the most remarkable performances by going bogey-free for 30 consecutive holes. The streak ended on the 18th, but the Mexican still had a 67 and was very much in range at even-par 210.

Missing from the mix was Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 player who had won three of his last four tournaments coming into the U.S. Open. Scheffler never found any momentum, with one critical stretch coming right before the turn.

After holing a 20-foot birdie putt on the sixth, Scheffler saved par after driving into the rough on No. 7 and hitting wedge to 3 feet. But then what looked like a tap-in par on the long par-three eighth turned into a shocking miss.

He wound up with a 70, moving him from a tie for 23rd to just outside the top 10. But he was eight shots behind Burns, his best friend on tour with whom he shares a house at the majors.

“I put myself in this position,” Scheffler said. “It’s not the position I want to be in, but I’ve done a good job of hanging in there and staying in the tournament.”

The best news for this U.S. Open was that it finished the third round without weather getting in the way. Oakmont received an inch of rain from when play ended on Friday evening. The USGA offered to refund tickets to spectators who didn’t want to traipse through the muck.

Divots taken from the fairways looked like pelts, and the greens were noticeably softer and more receptive. There was one spell midway through the round when umbrellas were out and the sun was shining.

Everyone plodded along, trying desperately to avoid rough that hasn’t been cut and greens that never seem to lose their speed.

Burns, a 28-year-old from Louisiana, had the look of someone determined to add his list to young Americans ready to capture a major. He took a most unusual route on the tough third hole with a drive well to the left, over the church pew bunkers and into the adjacent fourth fairway, allowing him to avoid a blind shot.

He picked up birdies with a wedge from the fairway to a back pin on No. 5 and a tee shot to 7 feet on the accessible par-three 13th. Equally important were the three times he saved par from the fairway after getting out of position off the tee

Then came the closing stretch. He clipped a wedge that raced toward a back pin and checked up a foot away on the short par-four 17th. And he caught a break on the 18th when his drive into the rough caught a good lie, a rarity at Oakmont, allowing him to reach the back of the green nearly 60 feet away. He gently rolled the putt down to 4 feet for one last par and the lead.

Ferguson writes for the Associated Press.

Italians are voting in referendums on easing citizenship rules and strengthening labour protections amid concerns that low turnout may deem the poll invalid.

Voting began on Sunday and will continue through Monday.

The citizenship question on the ballot paper asks Italians if they back reducing the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship by naturalisation to five years.

A resident from a non-European Union country, without marriage or blood ties to Italy, must currently live in the country for 10 years before they can apply for citizenship, a process that can then take years.

Supporters say the reform could affect about 2.5 million foreign nationals living in the country and would bring Italy’s citizenship law in line with many other European nations, including Germany and France.

The measures were proposed by Italy’s main union and left-wing opposition parties.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said she would show up at the polls but not cast a ballot. The left has criticised the action as antidemocratic, since it would not help reach the necessary turnout threshold of 50 percent plus one of eligible voters to make the vote valid.

Meloni, whose far-right Brothers of Italy party has prioritised cutting undocumented immigration even while increasing the number of work visas for migrants, is strongly against it.

She said on Thursday that the current system “is an excellent law, among the most open, in the sense that we have for years been among the European nations that grant the highest number of citizenships each year”.

More than 213,500 people acquired Italian citizenship in 2023, double the number in 2020 and one-fifth of the EU total, according to statistics.

More than 90 percent were from outside the EU, mostly from Albania and Morocco, as well as Argentina and Brazil – two countries with large Italian immigrant communities.

Even if the proposed reform passes, it will not affect the migration law many consider the most unfair – that children born in Italy to foreign parents cannot request nationality until they reach 18.

Italian singer Ghali, who was born in Milan to Tunisian parents and has been an outspoken advocate for changing the law for children, urged his fans to back the proposal as a step in the right direction.

“I was born here, I always lived here, but I only received citizenship at the age of 18,” Ghali said on Instagram. “With a ‘Yes’ we ask that five years of life here are enough, not 10, to be part of this country”.

Michelle Ngonmo, a cultural entrepreneur and advocate for diversity in the fashion industry, also urged a “yes” vote.

“This referendum is really about dignity and the right to belong, which is key for many people who were born here and spent most of their adult life contributing to Italian society. For them, a lack of citizenship is like an invisible wall,” said Ngonmo, who has lived most of her life in Italy after moving as a child from Cameroon.

“You are good enough to work and pay taxes, but not to be fully recognised as Italian. This becomes a handicap for young generations, particularly in the creative field, creating frustration, exclusion and a big waste of potential,” she told the Associated Press news agency.

The other four measures on the ballot deal with the labour law, including better protections against dismissal, higher severance payments, the conversion of fixed-term contracts into permanent ones and liability in cases of workplace accidents.

Opinion polls published in mid-May showed that only 46 percent of Italians were aware of the issues driving the referendums. Turnout projections were even weaker, at about 35 percent of more than 51 million voters, well below the required quorum.

Many of the 78 referendums held in Italy in the past have failed due to low turnout.

Polling stations opened on Sunday at 7am local time (05:00 GMT), with results expected after polls close on Monday at 3pm (13:00 GMT).

Joseph Kabila is visiting the eastern city of Goma, which has been seized by rebels, after he was stripped of immunity.

Former President Joseph Kabila has returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just days after he lost his immunity amid accusations he has helped armed rebels fighting in the eastern DRC, according to the Reuters and AFP news agencies.

Kabila, on Thursday, was visiting the eastern city of Goma, which had been seized by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia along with several other areas in the resource-rich east of the country earlier this year.

A team of AFP journalists saw Kabila meet local religious figures in the presence of M23’s spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka, without giving a statement.

Citing three unidentified sources close to Kabila, Reuters also said the ex-president held talks with locals in Goma.

The visit comes despite the former president facing the possibility of a treason trial over his alleged support for M23.

Earlier this month, the DRC Senate voted to lift Kabila’s immunity, paving the way for him to be prosecuted.

The ex-president, who has been in self-imposed exile since 2023, denies the allegations and has slammed the charges against him as “arbitrary decisions with disconcerting levity”.

On Thursday, a member of Kabila’s entourage told AFP that though no formal alliance existed between his party and M23, both shared the “same goal” of ending the rule of President Felix Tshisekedi.

The United Nations and the DRC’s government say Rwanda has supported the M23 with arms and troops – an accusation the neighbouring country denies.

The renewed violence has raised fears of igniting a full-blown conflict, akin to the wars that the DRC endured in the late 1990s, involving several African countries, which killed millions of people.

The current fighting has already displaced about 700,000 people this year, according to the UN.

On Tuesday, Amnesty International accused M23 of committing abuses against civilians in areas under its control, “including torture, killings and enforced disappearances”.

“These acts violate international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes,” the group said in a statement.

M23 says its goal is to protect ethnic minorities against the government in Kinshasa.

WARSAW, Poland — The Conservative Political Action Conference, the United States’ premier conservative gathering, held its first meeting in Poland on Tuesday, just five days before a tightly contested presidential election between a liberal mayor and a conservative backed by President Trump.

The two candidates vying to replace Polish President Andrzej Duda offer starkly different visions for Poland: Rafał Trzaskowski, the pro-European Union liberal mayor of Warsaw, and Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the Law and Justice party who is skeptical of the EU.

“We need you to elect the right leader,” Kristi Noem, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and a prominent Trump ally, said in a speech at the event. “You will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values.”

Noem described Trzaskowski as “an absolute train wreck of a leader” and Nawrocki as someone who would lead Poland in a style similar to Trump.

She opened her speech saying: “I just had the opportunity to meet with Karol and listen: he needs to be the next president of Poland. Do you understand me?”

She also implied that electing Nawrocki would strengthen the U.S.-Poland relationship.

“If you (elect) a leader that will work with President Donald J. Trump, the Polish people will have an ally that will ensure that you will be able to fight off enemies that do not share your values,” she said.

“You will have strong borders and protect your communities and keep them safe, and ensure that your citizens are respected every single day,” she said. “You will continue to have a U.S. presence here, a military presence. And you will have equipment that is American-made, that is high quality.”

The United States currently has some 10,000 troops stationed in Poland, a mission aimed at reassuring the frontline NATO nation worried about Russian aggression.

“Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity that you have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country,” Noem said.

CPAC sees a ‘globalist’ attack

CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp opened the proceedings with a speech claiming that conservatives around the world are locked in a battle against “globalists,” whom he described as enemies of faith, family and freedom.

Schlapp claimed CPAC had stood by Trump throughout his legal battles and declared that similar threats were playing out in countries like Poland.

“Are you happy that America is getting closer to being great again?” Schlapp asked the audience. “Did the reelection of Donald Trump bring you joy?”

“When one of us is under attack, the rest of us must come to that person’s defense,” he added. “The globalists intend to take each one of us out one by one — to shame us, to silence us, to bankrupt us, to ruin us, to make our kids turn against us.”

He said that’s why it was important to “win all these elections, including in Poland, that are so important to the freedom of people everywhere.”

The conference took place in Jasionka, near the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszow, located in a region of Poland that is staunchly conservative. Jasionka has also been the hub for U.S. and Western weapons sent to Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion more than three years ago.

A global conservative movement

CPAC meetings, which started in 1974, used to champion tight budgets and a hawkish foreign policy, but have steadily been taken over by the Trump wing of the Republican party. CPAC has rebranded itself as a celebration of the U.S. president’s populist approach.

At the same time, it’s reached out to other conservative populists with a stated goal of helping grow a global conservative movement. CPAC has held gatherings in Japan, South Korea, Mexico City and Israel. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his staff have become regular speakers. The gathering in Poland followed multiple CPAC meetings in Budapest.

Another speaker Tuesday was John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who was the architect of much of Trump’s unsuccessful strategy to overturn his 2020 election loss.

In his speech, Eastman framed the upcoming Polish presidential election as a decisive moment for the future of Western civilization. He argued that a cultural and ideological “cancer” marked by a loss of faith in Western civilization is spreading eastward.

“Poland is poised to play a critical role in defeating this threat to Western civilization. That is why the election this coming Sunday is so important,” Eastman said.

Gera writes for the Associated Press.

Beirut, Lebanon – As southern Lebanon continues to suffer from sporadic Israeli attacks despite a ceasefire signed in November between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, establishment parties have emerged as the biggest winners of municipal elections.

Voting took place over four weeks, starting in Mount Lebanon – north of the capital, Beirut – followed by the country’s northern districts, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley, and concluding on Saturday in southern Lebanon.

While Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political and armed group, suffered setbacks to its political influence and military capabilities during 14 months of war with Israel, the group’s voter base was still intact and handed it and Amal, its closest political ally, victories across dozens of municipalities.

“The Hezbollah-Amal alliance has held firm and support among the Shia base has not experienced any dramatic erosion,” Imad Salamey, a professor of political science at the Lebanese American University, told Al Jazeera.

Despite establishment parties winning the majority of seats across the country, candidates running on campaigns of political reform and opposition to the political establishment also made inroads in some parts of the country, even winning seats in municipalities in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah historically has enjoyed strong support.

In Lebanon, there is no unified bloc of reformists although political actors and groups that emerged during the 2019 antigovernment protests over the economic crisis are referred to locally as “el-tagheyereen”, or change makers.

“Alternative Shia candidates in some localities were able to run without facing significant intimidation, signalling a limited but growing space for dissent within the community,” Salamey said.

The fact the elections were held at all will be seen as a boon to the pro-reform government of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who came to power in January, say analysts. The polls, initially set for 2022, were delayed three times due to parliamentary elections, funding issues and the war with Israel, which started in October 2023.

Critics, however, argued the elections favoured established parties because the uncertainty over when they would be held meant candidates waited to build their campaigns. As recently as March, there were still proposals to delay the elections until September to give candidates a chance to prepare their platforms after Lebanon suffered through the war and a two-month intensification by Israel from September to November, which left the country needing $11bn for recovery and reconstruction, according to the World Bank.

The war left Hezbollah politically and militarily battered after Israel killed much of its leadership, including longtime Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his successor Hachem Safieddine.

The war reordered the power balance in Lebanon, diminishing Hezbollah’s influence. Many villages in southern Lebanon are still inaccessible, and Israel continues to occupy five points of Lebanese territory that it has refused to withdraw from after the ceasefire. It also continues to attack other parts of the south, where it claims Hezbollah still has weapons.

With their villages still destroyed or too dangerous to access, many southerners cast ballots in Nabatieh or Tyre, an act that recalls the 18-year Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000. During the occupation, elections for southern regions under Israeli control were also held in other cities still under Lebanese sovereignty.

Hezbollah has given up the majority of its sites in the south to the Lebanese army, a senior western diplomat told Al Jazeera and local media has reported.

The recent post-war period also brought to power a new president, army commander Joseph Aoun, and the reform camp’s choice for prime minister, Salam, former president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Hezbollah remains ‘strong’

Municipal elections are not seen as an indicator of the country’s popular sentiment due to low voter interest and local political dynamics differing from those at the national level. Some analysts dismissed the results, calling them “insignificant” and added that next year’s parliamentary elections would more accurately reflect which direction the country is headed.

Voter turnout was lower in almost every part of the country compared with 2016, the last time municipal elections took place. The places it fell included southern Lebanon, where 37 percent of the population voted. In 2016, 48 percent of its voters cast ballots. This was also true in most of the Bekaa Valley, an area that also was hit hard during the war and where Hezbollah tends to be the most popular party. In the north, voter turnout dropped from 45 percent in 2016 to 39 percent in 2025. In Beirut, the turnout was marginally higher – 21 percent in 2025 compared with 20 percent in 2016.

Many people in southern Lebanon are still living through the war as Israel continues to carry out attacks on areas like Nabatieh. While some in and from the south have questioned Hezbollah’s standing and decision to enter into a war with Israel on behalf of Gaza when they fired rockets on the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms territory on October 8, 2023, others still cling to their fervent support for the group.

“The municipal elections confirmed that Hezbollah and the Amal Movement remain strong,” Qassem Kassir, a journalist and political analyst believed to be close to Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera. “The forces of change are weak, and their role has declined. The party [Hezbollah] maintains its relationship with the people.”

Although reform forces did win some seats, including in Lebanon’s third largest city, Sidon, they were largely at a disadvantage due to a lack of name familiarity, the short campaign time and misinformation circulated by politically affiliated media.

Claims of corruption and contested election results marred voting in parts of the north, where many candidates from traditional political parties dominated.

In Beirut, forces for change were dealt a heavy blow. After receiving about 40 percent of the vote in 2016, which still was not enough to earn them a municipal seat, the reformist Beirut Madinati (Beirut My City) list won less than 10 percent of this year’s vote.

The defeat took place despite the worsening living conditions in the capital, which critics blamed on establishment parties, including those running the municipality.

“The municipality lives on another planet, completely detached from the concerns of the people,” Sarah Mahmoud, a Beirut Madinati candidate, told Al Jazeera on May 18 on the streets of Beirut as people went out to vote.

Since an economic crisis took hold in 2019, electricity cuts have become more common, and diesel generators have plugged the gap. These generators contribute to air pollution, which has been linked to cardiovascular and respiratory ailments in Beirut and carries cancer risks.

Despite the criticisms and degraded living situation in the city, a list of candidates backed by establishment figures and major parties, including Hezbollah and Amal, but also their major ideological opponents, including the Lebanese Forces and the right-wing Kataeb Party, won 23 out of 24 seats.

This list ran on a platform that stoked fears of sectarian disenfranchisement and promised sectarian parity.

Municipalities, unlike Lebanon’s parliament, do not have sectarian quotas.

‘What are you fighting for?’

The unlikely coalition of establishment parties, which was similar to the successful list in 2016 that aligned establishment parties against reform candidates, puzzled some in the capital. In separate incidents, television reporters confronted representatives from Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces, drawing angry and confrontational reactions from them but little clarification as to why they’d align with an avowed enemy.

Bernard Bridi, a media adviser for the list, said its priority was to bring in a foreign consultancy that would advise the municipality on how to manage Beirut like other major international capitals. She added that the opposing parties decided to unify because the stakes are so high this year after years of economic suffering, particularly since the war.

Critics, however, accused the establishment parties of trying to keep power concentrated among themselves rather than let it fall to reformists who could threaten the system that has consolidated power in the hands of a few key figures and groups in the post-civil war era.

“The question is what are you fighting for,” Karim Safieddine, a political organiser with Beirut Madinati, said, referring to the establishment list. “And if they can tell me what they’re fighting for, I’d be grateful.”

Now the nation’s eyes will turn to May next year as parties and movements are already preparing their candidates and platforms for parliamentary elections.

In 2022, just more than a dozen reform candidates emerged from Lebanon’s economic crisis and subsequent popular uprising. Some speculated that the reform spirit has subsided since thousands of Lebanese have emigrated abroad – close to 200,000 from 2018 to 2021 alone – and others have grown disillusioned at a perceived lack of immediate change or disagreements among reform-minded figures.

Many Lebanese will also have last year’s struggles during the war and need for reconstruction in mind when heading to the polls next year.

Some have started to question or challenge Hezbollah’s longtime dominance after seeing the group so badly weakened by Israel. Others are doubling down on their support due to what they said is neglect by the new government and their belief that Hezbollah is the only group working in their interests.

“Taken together, these developments imply a future trajectory where Shia political support for Hezbollah remains solid but increasingly isolated,” Salamey explained, “while its broader cross-sectarian coalition continues to shrink, potentially reducing Hezbollah’s influence in future parliamentary elections to that of a more pronounced minority bloc.”

It was called Super Sunday – three elections in European Union nations on the same day.

All eyes were on Romania’s presidential run-off – a crucial vote for the NATO member, in which a centrist victory has been welcomed by the EU and Ukraine.

In Poland, the governing party’s pro-EU candidate and his right-wing nationalist rival are set for a decisive second-round vote in June. But the centrist Warsaw mayor’s slim lead means the country could still lean towards populism.

Perhaps the biggest change was in Portugal, where the centre-right alliance won snap parliamentary elections as the far right won a record number of votes.

Europe’s political centre appears to be holding but for how much longer?

And will these results reassure an EU seeking respite from the turbulence of populist politics?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Pieter Cleppe, editor-in-chief, BrusselsReport.eu

Piotr Buras, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations

Antonio Costa Pinto, professor of political science, University of Lisbon

Immigration and cost of living crisis on voters’ minds as they head to polling booths to elect the next government.

Voting is under way in a general election in Portugal – its third vote in as many years – with immigration and the cost of living crisis the biggest talking points during the campaign.

Sunday’s snap elections were called after Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, who leads the centre-right Democratic Alliance, lost a parliamentary vote of confidence in March, just a year into his minority government’s term.

Montenegro called the vote in response to accusations of conflicts of interest over the activities of his family’s consulting firm. He denied any wrongdoing.

Despite the controversy, opinion polls suggested the Democratic Alliance is set to win the most votes ahead of its main rival, the centre-left Socialist Party, and potentially pick up extra seats.

But Montenegro’s party is predicted to fall short again of the 116 seats needed for a majority in parliament.

Polls indicated the far-right Chega party – which opposes immigration, abortion and LGBTQ rights – is to finish in third place, giving it a possible kingmaker role. But Montenegro has ruled out working with Chega, which won 50 seats in last year’s elections.

The economy, immigration and Portugal’s housing crisis were major issues on the campaign trail while Montenegro appealed directly to voters to give him a strong mandate to end the political instability.

“We have to do our part at home, and we have to be part of the solutions abroad, in Europe and in the world. And for that, we need a strong government,” he told a rally in Lisbon on Friday.

Shortly after voting on Sunday, he told reporters that he was confident the country could achieve stable governance.

“There is a search for a stable solution, but that will now depend on [people’s] choices,” he said.