July 5, 2026 - Second day of public funeral for Iran’s Supreme Leader

Commercial vessels are seen in the Strait of Hormuz on June 30.

Overall traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has remained “steady” over the past few days but doesn’t appear to be increasing, particularly with regard to the southern Omani route, according to a maritime security authority.

The movement of vessels through the crucial waterway via the Omani corridor is “stable” but reports do not indicate a “sustained increase,” the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center said Sunday.

Meanwhile, the use of a northern Iranian-controlled route also continues, but overall volumes are “difficult to assess” as some ships have turned off their transponders, UKMTO said.

Data from shipping intelligence firm Windward also appears to shows traffic through the waterway remaining steady over the past week, with a slight dip on Thursday and Saturday.

The existence of competing routes through the channel has only added to the uncertainty facing operators and their crews, even during a tenuous ceasefire in the region.

Despite the potential risks, vessels are making the crossing, including via the route which hugs the Omani coastline.

Earlier today, a convoy of at least five vessels transited the strait via the Omani corridor, one day after several other ships attempted to cross using the same route but U-turned at the last moment.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, the coalition of the world’s top oil producers known as OPEC+, agreed on Sunday to increase oil production as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains below prewar levels.

The seven oil-producing members will raise daily output by 188,000 barrels a day, continuing output hikes for the fifth consecutive time since Israel and the United States began attacks on Iran on February 28.

The group did not mention the US-Iran conflict in a statement posted online but said it will continue to monitor market conditions.

The oil market has faced major disruptions in recent months, as the strait was effectively closed during most of the conflict. Strikes have also damaged energy facilities in the Middle East, and some oil producers have shut down sites.

Oil prices climbed amid the war, briefly reaching a four-year high of above $126 a barrel in April. But prices have trickled lower, with Brent crude on Friday settling at $72.12.

Following the ceasefire announcement, Goldman Sachs researchers estimated that oil prices would average $75 a barrel next year — a drop from earlier expectations that oil prices could remain in the triple-digits in 2027.

Remember: The US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire in mid-June, which included commitments to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil flows, without tolls during the 60-day agreement.

But tit-for-tat strikes around the strait last month and attacks on some commercial vessels have left operators and crews facing danger and uncertainty even during the ceasefire.

The US Navy has suspended the search for a missing service member whose helicopter went down in the Arabian Sea on Wednesday.

The efforts ended after an “extensive search” that was carried out by the US Navy and US Air Force, the Naval Forces Central Command said in a post on X.

On Wednesday, the US military said a MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush had gone down in the region and that there was “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.”

Three of the helicopter’s four crew members were recovered at the time and were in stable condition, it said, adding that the incident was under investigation. It did not provide further details on the cause of the crash.

The name of the missing service member is being withheld until at least 24 hours after their next of kin can be informed, the Naval Forces Central Command said today.

CNN’s Haley Britzky contributed to this reporting.

Women walk past a banner depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in Tehran, Iran on May 6.

The structure of Iran’s regime was built following the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

This swept away Iran’s monarchy and birthed a state that is part theocracy, part republic, with a handful of semi-democratic institutions swaddled by a system that is ultimately clerical.

Here’s a look at how power operates in the country:

In an attempt at showing unity, Iran has said it expects up to 15 million mourners to turn up to the dayslong funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But not everyone is keen to pay their respects.

Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of security repercussions, some residents told CNN they refuse to join the crowds on Tehran’s streets, feeling both frustration and apathy at the grand event.

He said that in the end, and despite Khamenei’s death, “nothing has changed,” adding that his absent successor Mojtaba Khamenei may not be any different.

Arash Azizi, a New York-based Iran expert and author of the book “What Iranians Want,” told CNN that Iran is a country of 90 million and there will be a wide range of views on the late supreme leader.

“A vocal minority backs him fully and others are more divided,” Azizi said. “He was Iran’s head of state for almost four decades and different aspects of his rule will be judged differently by various Iranians.”

Another Tehran resident, 35, said they decided “to ignore this whole thing.”

A woman in her 30s who works as a part-time teacher in Tehran said the number of mourners advertised by the regime is highly exaggerated.

“Those figures of 10 or 20 million are complete nonsense,” she said, citing crowds seen firsthand. “Even in the best-case scenario, it’s unlikely they’d reach 1 million people in a single day — very unlikely.

Authorities in Iran have said 1.3 million passengers made more than 3 million metro trips in Tehran overnight, as the second day of funeral events for slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei got underway.

It is unclear what normal traffic levels are in the city, but previous estimates point to a daily ridership of around 2 million.

The company, which runs the city’s metro system, added that more than 6 million metro trips were also recorded on Saturday, the first day of funeral events, Fars News Agency said. CNN cannot independently verify the figures.

Remember: The Iranian Health Ministry said around 15 million people are expected to take part in funeral ceremonies for Khamenei over the next several days, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

Mourners carry portraits of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as hundreds of thousands gather to catch a glimpse of the late Iranian leader in a glass coffin in Tehran, Iran in 1989.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes in late February, was Iran’s second and longest serving supreme leader.

He became head of state in 1989, after the death of his mentor and predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution, died just under ten years after founding the Islamic Republic.

His funeral was recognized by Guinness World Records as having the “largest percentage of population to attend a funeral,” with an estimated 10.2 million people — equivalent to one sixth of the country’s population — in attendance, according to official Iranian estimates.

The events surrounding the funeral were chaotic, with eight people killed and hundreds injured, according to a report written by the Associated Press news agency at the time.

Iran’s semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) wrote about the 1989 funeral earlier this week, describing how the enormous crowds exceeded the numbers expected by authorities.

Large crowds attend Khomeini's funeral ceremony in 1989.

When Khomeini’s coffin began moving in a convoy, mourners surged towards it, causing a crowd crush and forcing the funeral procession to be abandoned, according to ISNA. The coffin was airlifted away from the scene by helicopter to allow the crowds to disperse, it said.

Some mourners scratched their faces until they bled in their grief, the AP reported at the time. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had to hit some mourners’ hands to get them to let go of Khomeini’s coffin as it passed through the crowds, it described.

Palestinians inspect rubble at the site of an Israeli strike in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, on May 24.

Fourteen-year-old Karam dribbles a blue, yellow and white football down a sandy path in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

“Life before the war was beautiful. But now, there is no life,” he told CNN.

Around the teenager, Gaza’s deep blue, sea-tipped horizon has turned into a panorama of burned farmland, charred orchards and mountains of rubble.

As the US and Iran try to turn their truce into long-term peace, CNN has spoken to residents of the Gaza Strip who say they are living in the ashes of what they see as another impotent US-led deal.

Last fall, Israel and Hamas signed a two-phase agreement after two years of bombing and siege in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel. But since then the death toll in the territory has continued to climb.

Read more about what life has been like in Gaza since the ceasefire deal here.

‌Qatar and Iran have announced the resumption of maritime trade between their ports.

Qatar’s Transport Ministry said in a statement ⁠posted on X on Sunday ​that maritime activities would resume ⁠with immediate effect.

Iranian state media reported the reopening of Qatar’s Al-Ruwais port to Iranian goods and the resumption of maritime trade between the two countries. The route between Al-Ruwais and the Iranian port of Dayyer is the shortest commercial shipping route across the Persian Gulf.

Qatar is one of the chief mediators between Iran and the United States and has consistently argued for dialogue to end the Gulf conflict.

A week ago, the emirate had urged ⁠all vessels to suspend ​sailing ​and maritime ⁠activities until ⁠further ‌notice amid renewed tensions over shipping in the southern Gulf.

Mourners hold portraits of Iran's slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of his funeral ceremonies in Tehran on Saturday.

“Ayatollah,” an Arabic term meaning “sign of God” or “divine sign,” is a senior clerical title in Twelver Shiite Islam typically reserved for scholars who have spent decades studying and teaching Islamic jurisprudence and theology in seminaries.

An ayatollah is generally regarded as a mujtahid — a jurist qualified to use independent legal reasoning and issue religious rulings.

While “ayatollah” is fundamentally a religious title, it has become closely intertwined with political authority in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, particularly because the country’s supreme leader is expected to have high-level religious credentials. Shiite Islam is Iran’s official state religion, followed by an estimated 90 to 95 percent of the population.

The title has also taken on heightened political significance in recent years as Iranian state-linked institutions and media increasingly referred to Mojtaba Khamenei as an “ayatollah” as part of an effort to bolster his religious standing.

Before succeeding his late father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei was widely described as a hojatoleslam, a rank below ayatollah.

Under Iran’s constitution, the supreme leader must be a senior Islamic jurist, and elevating Mojtaba Khamenei’s clerical rank was seen by observers as a way to strengthen the religious legitimacy required for succession.

Analysts say the move also signalled a preference among hard-line power centers, including elements aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for a continuity candidate during a period of heightened instability, given that Ali Khamenei was killed following a deadly airstrike on the first day of the US-Israeli war with Iran on February 28.

Some context: A central question looming over the funeral is whether Mojtaba Khamenei will appear to lead prayers for his father.

Mojtaba is believed to have been seriously wounded in that attack, which also killed his mother and his wife. He has remained in hiding since the war began, communicating with his supporters only through written statements, never showing his face or using his voice.