Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa finalized on Wednesday the formation of the country's first parliament in the post-Assad era, which authorities said will hold its first session on July 6.

Of the last 70 lawmakers appointed, 15 are women and 13 were previously held in prison under toppled president Bashar al-Assad. The other members, comprising two-thirds of the legislature, were selected by electoral committees.

A ship ran aground in the Strait of Hormuz after not running Iran's approved route through the water, Iranian state television reported Wednesday. The report identified the affected vessel as a foreign container ship, but offered no other immediate details.

The Iranian state TV report appeared aimed at underlining the claims Tehran has made since the U.S.-Iran war to control over the strait, which has long been considered by the world as an international waterway and saw a fifth of all oil and natural gas pass through it in peacetime.

U.S. and Iranian officials will hold indirect lower-level technical talks with mediators on Wednesday on a deal aimed at permanently ending the Middle East war, a diplomat with knowledge of the talks told AFP.

"U.S. and Iranian officials are to hold indirect technical talks on Wednesday in Doha with Qatari and Pakistani mediators on the memorandum of understanding and building on the progress made at the Lake Lucerne Summit," the diplomat said.

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appear to be staking out differing approaches to carrying out President Donald Trump's national security agenda as the possible 2028 presidential rivals jostle for position in a divided Republican Party.

With vastly different backgrounds and policy experience, they have moved along separate paths to stake out territory: Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants with a long history in the Senate and major interest in Latin America, and Vance, a child of the Midwest and Marine Corps veteran who served in the Senate for only two years before being tapped as Trump's 2024 running mate, with a message of opposing foreign wars.

Gaza health officials said Israeli strikes killed five people including a child in the Palestinian territory.

Iran will respond to any U.S. violation of the memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war in the Middle East, its foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday, as delegations from both sides were expected in Qatar for indirect talks on the deal.

"We will not leave any action unanswered. As Iran's powerful armed forces have demonstrated, any act of aggression against the objectives of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be met with an immediate and decisive response," Esmaeil Baqaei told reporters at a weekly press conference.

Two U.S. envoys arrived in Qatar on Tuesday for talks with mediators about the implementation of an initial deal to end the war in Iran, an official said.

The visit by Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump's special Mideast envoy, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, comes after a weekend of crossfire in the Persian Gulf over efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic.

Mediator Qatar said on Tuesday that no high-level meetings or direct talks between the United States and Iran were planned in Doha after Washington said it had sent a top delegation for negotiations.

"To the best of my knowledge, there are no direct meetings scheduled between the two parties in the coming days," foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari told reporters in Doha, adding that the American team would meet with mediators. "To my knowledge there is no high-level meeting between the two sides."

The United States and Iran on Monday separately announced they will send delegations to Qatar this week, though Tehran insisted it has not agreed to meet with the U.S. "at any level" after attacks across the Persian Gulf over the weekend challenged negotiations to end the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump said the Islamic Republic had requested a meeting with U.S. counterparts and that they planned to convene Tuesday in Doha, Qatar.

As Israeli troops and vehicles entered the town of Abdin in southern Syria, residents blocked the roads with rocks, and some young men and boys threw stones to push back the military patrol.

Tensions in this part of the country created by a buffer zone occupied by Israeli forces have flared into violence in recent days, leaving residents anxious that more escalation is coming. Residents of Abdin, located near a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone now controlled by Israeli troops, tried to resist against a military incursion Sunday.