Iran’s supreme leader led tens of thousands in mourning at a grand funeral in the capital, Tehran, on Wednesday for the country’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags with their pictures on them. On the late President Ebrahim Raisi’s coffin sat a black turban — signifying his direct descendance from Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
“Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” Khamenei said in the standard prayer for the dead in Arabic, the language of Islam’sholy book, the Quran. He soon left and the crowd inside rushed to the front, reaching out to touch the coffins. Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service.
People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders, with chants outside of “Death to America!” They loaded them onto a semitruck-trailer for a procession through downtown Tehran to Azadi Square, or Freedom Square, where Raisi gave speeches in the past.
It followed somber but muted ceremonies Tuesday in the cities of Tabriz and Qom.
In attendance were top leaders of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, one of the country’s major power centers. Also on hand was Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, the militant group that Iran has armed and supported during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. Naim Qassem, the second in command of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, is also expected to be there.
Also expected to attend services in Tehran are foreign delegates including officials from Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Tajikistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan. Iran’s close ally, Russia, sent the speaker of the state Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin. Chinese media reported Wednesday that Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing would also attend.
Before the funeral, Haniyeh spoke and an emcee led the crowd in the chant: “Death to Israel!”
“I come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions of Gaza … to express our condolences,” Haniyeh told those gathered.
He also recounted meeting Raisi in Tehran during Ramadan, the holy Muslim fasting month, and heard the president say the Palestinian issue remains the key one of the Muslim world.
The Muslim world “must fulfil their obligations to the Palestinians to liberate their land,” Haniyeh said, recounting Raisi’s words. He also described Raisi calling the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war, which saw 1,200 people killed and 250 others taken hostage, an “earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity.” The war since has seen 35,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip and hundreds of others in the West Bank in Israeli operations.
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