Iran vowed to avenge Israel’s killing of senior commanders and different officers of its elite Quds Force, at a public funeral held on Friday for the useless males, however left open how it could retaliate and when.
“Our brave men will punish the Zionist regime,” General Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, informed the group attending the funeral in Tehran. “We warn that no act by any enemy against our holy system will go unanswered and the art of the Iranian nation is to break the power of empires.”
On Monday, Israel carried out an airstrike on a constructing that’s a part of the Iranian embassy complicated in Damascus, Syria, killing three generals and 4 different officers of the Quds Force. The pressure, an arm of the Revolutionary Guards, conducts navy and intelligence operations outdoors Iran, usually working carefully with allies which might be sworn enemies of Israel and the United States, together with Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas.
Iran’s president, Ibrahim Raisi, and the commander in chief of the Quds Force, General Ismail Ghaani — who was dressed in civilian black garments and never in uniform — marched with the group of mourners in Tehran on Friday, state media footage confirmed. Also current have been leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a bunch that took half in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on Israel, and the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, one of many Iran-backed Shia militias in Iraq.
The coffins of the slain males, draped with the flag of Iran and positioned on the again of vans adorned with flowers and inexperienced leaves, slowly snaked their method alongside an extended street in downtown Tehran the place 1000’s of individuals had gathered.
Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Hezbollah, delivered a video speech that was broadcast in Iran and in Lebanon throughout the funeral. He mentioned {that a} response from Iran may come at any time — probably in a day, or perhaps in a month — as a result of Iran was in no hurry.
“Be certain that the Iranian response to the targeting in Damascus is inevitably coming,” Mr. Nasrallah mentioned.
The evening earlier than, the coffins have been taken to the residential compound of Iran’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and laid in an open corridor the place he carried out the Muslim prayer for the useless over the coffins. Mr. Khamenei sometimes does such honors for very shut associates and senior officers who’ve been declared “martyrs” as a result of they have been killed by Israel or the United States.
The funeral coincided with the annual rally for Quds Day, a day of solidarity with Palestinians that’s held on the final Friday of Ramadan in many Muslim nations. The crowd chanted, “Death to Israel,” and “Death to America,” and waved the Palestinian flag. In one half, movies on state media confirmed, an offended crowd stomped on an effigy of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Quds Day rally, celebrated in many cities throughout Iran, attracts households with kids and normally has a carnival ambiance. But this 12 months the occasion seemed to be extra somber, overshadowed by the funeral, the heightened tensions with Israel and fears {that a} response from Iran for the strike may spark a battle between the 2 nations.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.
