After surviving assassination attempt, Iran's president plans Pakistan visit

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian is set to visit Pakistan on July 26, a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday, weeks after surviving an Israeli air strike that targeted him in Tehran.

At a press conference in Tehran, spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei described the upcoming presidential visit as a sign of the significance that Iran attaches to its relations with Pakistan.

The bilateral ties are based on historical, cultural, and religious understanding and mutual respect, Baqaei said, adding that diplomatic contacts have increased following the Israeli and United States aggression against Iran.

Israel waged a war of aggression against Iran on June 13 and struck Iran's military, nuclear and residential areas for 12 days, the US stepped in and conducted military attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran's Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan on June 22. In counterattacks, missiles launched by Iran appear to have directly hit at least five Israeli military facilities, according to radar data available to The Telegraph, and the US military base in Qatar.

Iran's Fars News Agency said that on June 16, Israeli air strikes hit a building in Tehran's Shahrak-e Bagheri district while Pezeshkian held a top meeting with parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and judiciary chief Mohseni Ejei in the lower level of the government facility.

Israel launched six precision-guided munitions at targeted entry and exit points, cutting power and apparently attempting to prevent those inside from leaving, and to prevent air from getting inside, the report said. The Iranian officials were forced to escape through a prepared emergency hatch, with Pezeshkian suffering leg injuries.

On Monday, Iranian media released a video clip of the huge explosions at the building stricken by Israeli bombs.

Pezeshkian himself previously told US commentator Tucker Carlson that Israel attempted to assassinate him. "They did try, yes… but they failed," he was quoted by Tasnim News Agency as saying.

"It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting… They tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting," Pezeshkian said in the interview.

Pezeshkian was indeed injured during an Israeli airstrike last month, two US intelligence sources told CBS News in mid July, confirming reports from Iranian state media.

During its unprovoked strikes Israel managed to assassinate and kill dozens of Iran's military leaders and nuclear energy scientists, supported by years of intelligence penetrations.

Iran held state mourning and burials in late June for about 60 people hit by Israeli attacks, including Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Hossein Salami, Commander of Iran's Khatam al-Anbia Central Headquarters Major General Gholam Ali Rashid, Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force Major General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, as well as some women and children.

In a brutal act of state terrorism, the Israeli regime assassinated Iranian nuclear scientist Sedighi Saber alongside 12 members of his family in northern Iran, just hours before a ceasefire was set to take effect on June 23, Tasnim News Agency reported.

Giulio Chinappi, an Italian political writer and analyst, told Tasnim that Israel has systematically used targeted assassinations, collective punishment, and military aggression to suppress resistance and assert total dominance across the region. He called the Israeli regime's systematic use of targeted killings as egregious proof of state-sponsored terrorism.

Cui Haipei in Dubai, UAE contributed to this report.