Two IRGC members were killed and two others wounded in a shooting in Paveh county in western Iran’s Kermanshah province, the provincial IRGC public relations office said on Tuesday.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards office described the incident as a “terrorist” attack and said the shooting took place outside a home on Monday evening.
Authorities were investigating the details of the incident and working to identify those behind it, it added.
US Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said on Monday he saw little evidence that Iran would agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“It’s just that the administration seems optimistic that Iran is going to agree to open up the strait, it’s all going to go fine. I don’t see a lot of evidence for that,” Smith told reporters.
He said the issue was not that officials were withholding information, but that they believed “everything’s fine” and Iran would accept US demands.
“I just, I doubt that,” Smith said.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said on Monday that all but two South Korean-linked vessels stranded in the Strait of Hormuz have now exited the strategic waterway.
A total of 26 South Korean-linked ships were in the Strait when Iran closed the chokepoint on Feb. 28, the day the US-Israeli war began.
The update marks a significant improvement in maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as implementation of the interim US-Iran peace agreement continues, although shipping volumes remain below pre-war levels and security concerns persist.
Iran's World Cup campaign ended on Saturday after a 1–1 draw with Egypt and results elsewhere confirmed Team Melli's elimination from the tournament.
But for many Iranians, the tournament had long ceased to be just about football.
Their final match in Seattle, played during the city's Pride celebrations, became a showcase for the political, cultural and human rights debates that increasingly follow Iran's national team wherever it plays.
Inside the stadium, rainbow flags flew alongside the pre-revolution Lion and Sun flag, while many Iranian supporters wore shirts and carried banners commemorating victims of the January 8–9 massacre. Outside, hundreds marched toward the stadium chanting against the Islamic Republic.
In parts of the Iranian diaspora, Team Melli no longer represents just a football team. It has become inseparable from debates over the Islamic Republic itself.
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Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer sharply criticized a classified briefing on the US-Iran memorandum of understanding on Monday, calling it "deficient, and devoid of details."
"After dragging America into a costly war, the Trump administration still can't name a single thing Americans got in return," Schumer said after US envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed members of Congress by phone.
Schumer said Rubio confirmed that Iran would receive billions of dollars in oil revenue while retaining what he described as "dangerous leverage" over the Strait of Hormuz.
Intermittent US-Iran escalations are giving Iran's anti-US hardliners fresh ammunition, strengthening their case against diplomacy and putting the country's pro-negotiation camp under growing pressure.
The latest exchange of strikes has allowed opponents of the Tehran-Washington memorandum of understanding (MoU) to argue that even a limited agreement cannot prevent conflict or deliver the economic relief promised to ordinary Iranians.
A majority of members of the Assembly of Experts seized on the renewed tensions over the weekend by issuing an unusually political statement questioning key elements of the MoU.
They criticized the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, insisted Iran's nuclear rights must remain outside negotiations and called for those responsible for the killing of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—including US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—to be punished, saying anyone with access to them had a religious duty to kill them.
The statement was followed by a commentary in the hardline newspaper Kayhan, whose editor Hossein Shariatmadari echoed calls for retaliation against Trump.
The intervention marked one of the clearest signs yet that recent military exchanges have emboldened factions that have long opposed negotiations with Washington.
At the same time, hardliners renewed attacks on President Massoud Pezeshkian and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, arguing that diplomacy has failed to produce either a durable ceasefire or meaningful economic relief.
Throughout the past month, outlets such as Kayhan and Raja News, along with ultrahardline factions including the Paydari Party, have steadily intensified their criticism of the 60-day framework agreement.
Kayhan has described the MoU as "diplomatic capitulation under Western pressure," while Raja News has portrayed it as a retreat from Iran's red lines without securing comprehensive sanctions relief.
By linking economic hardship directly to continuing military pressure, these groups have shifted the domestic debate from how best to implement the agreement to whether negotiations with an adversary still engaged in military action can produce any meaningful benefit.
From their perspective, each exchange of strikes reinforces the argument that Washington cannot be trusted and that diplomacy merely gives the United States and Israel time to regroup.
Renewed maritime incidents and the slow pace of sanctions relief have become central to that narrative.
Hardline lawmakers including Kamran Ghazanfari and Mahmoud Nabavian have likewise criticized provisions allowing the resumption of commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, arguing that Iran has reopened one of its most important strategic levers without securing sufficient concessions in return.
More pragmatic conservatives and state-aligned outlets, including the Ghalibaf-affiliated Khorasan newspaper, have found themselves defending the agreement as a state-approved tactical pause rather than a final settlement—an indication that the political debate is increasingly being fought on hardliners' terms.
The latest military exchanges have not fundamentally altered the balance of power inside the Islamic Republic, but they have strengthened the political position of those who opposed negotiations from the outset.
Whether that advantage proves temporary or enduring will depend largely on whether the ceasefire holds and whether the negotiations begin producing tangible results.
For the government, the immediate challenge extends beyond managing relations with Washington. It must also persuade skeptical political and clerical constituencies that diplomacy can still improve Iran's security and economic position.
Failure to do so could further strengthen arguments that negotiations have produced neither stability nor prosperity, narrowing the political space available to diplomats such as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and others advocating continued engagement with the United States.
Whether the current ceasefire ultimately survives may prove less significant than what the latest escalation has already changed inside Iran's domestic debate. Each renewed exchange of fire gives opponents of diplomacy another opportunity to argue that negotiations cannot deliver either security or economic relief.
Unless the ceasefire becomes durable and visible economic benefits begin to emerge, the balance of political momentum is likely to continue shifting toward those advocating a more confrontational course.