Tehran- Crowds packed the streets of Tehran and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, performed funeral prayers on Wednesday for the country’s president, with senior officials from Hamas and Hezbollah joining the commemorations.
“Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in the standard prayer for the dead in Arabic.
Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby among a sea of mourners, and openly wept during the service.
People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders, with chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
The millions-strong procession started from the University of Tehran to the iconic Azadi Square.
In attendance were top leaders of Iran’s military and paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The presence of leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah — two key Iranian allies in the Middle East — alongside an array of non-Western officials offered a stark illustration of Tehran’s international standing at a turbulent moment for the country.
The president, Ebrahim Raisi, 63, was killed in a helicopter crash along with Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, 60, and five others traveling with them on Sunday.
Following the deadly helicopter crash, Iran set June 28 as the next presidential election. For now, there’s no clear favorite for the position among Iran’s political elite.
Speaking at the ceremony Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahdidi said that Iran is mourning the loss of a beloved, popular, and humble president.
“We had a bad landing in this matter, but we will have a brilliant rise,” Vahidi stressed.
During Raisi’s term in office, Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel last month as its war on Gaza rages on. Iran has supported Hamas throughout the war.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh attended the funeral prayers and said in his address that, “I come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions of Gaza…to express our condolences,” Haniyeh said.
Haniyeh recounted Raisi telling him this year that the Oct. 7 attack was an “earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity.” In a later meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader told Haniyeh that the “destruction of the Zionist regime is feasible and, God willing, the day in which Palestine will be created from the sea to river will arrive.”
Haniyeh’s presence and that of commanders from Lebanon and Yemen signaled Iran intends to continue its policy of support for resistance groups — including Palestine, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement.
Statesmen from the Mideast and beyond attended a later memorial service, including Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Tunisian President Kais Saied.
According to Barbara Slavin, an Iran expert and distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, a think tank in Washington, the “fairly modest showing of heads of state” was most likely a reflection of Raisi’s political status — which was more akin to that of a prime minister than a president.
“Raisi was not the head of state — the supreme leader is,” Ms. Slavin said, adding that, as such, it “would not be appropriate” for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia or China’s Xi to attend the funeral.
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