The speaker of Iran's parliament and chief negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, has called for "revenge" for the death of former Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, by taking part in his funeral in Tehran.
"I call on all the Iranian people. to write a glorious page in Iran's history through your presence," Khamenei said , adding that "the nation's call for revenge must reverberate in the ears of the whole world," amid stern Iranian warnings to Washington and Tel Aviv against launching any new attacks ahead of the funeral.
Mojtaba Khamenei may not attend his father's funeral
Iran's Supreme Leader's representative in India, Hakim Elahi, said that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may not be able to attend the funeral of his father, Ali Khamenei, for security reasons, and stated that the security services do not allow him to go out for his own safety.
In a statement, Hakim Elahi said that the Israeli occupation's continuous threats targeting Iranian leaders may be the reason why Khamenei did not participate in the funeral ceremonies.
During a press conference on Wednesday, July 1, in which he reviewed the future military capabilities of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and Turkey, the Minister of War of the occupying state Yisrael Katz announced that he had instructed the army to prepare an independent attack plan against Iran, and Katz kept the door open for the possibility of the occupying power entering a war with Iran "tomorrow", in response to a question about Mojtaba Khamenei, who he said was "on the list of those targeted for killing."
Khamenei's body arrives in Tehran
At dawn on Friday, July 3, the body of Iran 's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli strike, arrived at the Imam Khomeini Prayer Hall in Tehran in preparation for the start of his funeral ceremony.
Iran's supreme leader was killed in the first U.S.-Israeli strikes of the war, and funeral ceremonies will begin over the weekend in Tehran, with week-long mass rallies planned in Qom and Mashhad, as well as other ceremonies in Iraq.
The Friday prayer leader in Qom told state media that "the large public turnout to participate in the funeral ceremonies of the martyred leader and other martyrs will be, in fact, another referendum on the Islamic Republic."
Khamenei's death, and the succession of his son Mojtaba as Iran's third supreme leader, in the midst of a conflict with Iran's greatest enemy, marked a watershed moment in the Islamic Republic's 47-year history. Mojtaba, who was seriously wounded in the attack that killed his father, has not appeared in any new photographs since the war began.
Western reports that many Iranians, fed up with decades of sanctions that have been strangling their economies, recall that when people took to the streets in December and January in demonstrations sparked by inflation, many chanted for Khamenei's death.
Tehran is in a tense and calm atmosphere, in stark contrast to Khamenei's funeral, where senior foreign officials and figures, including those from Russia and China, will offer condolences at Friday's events.
Funeral Ceremony
On Saturday, Khamenei's body will be taken to a mosque in Tehran in the first stop of a funeral tour across the country. He will carry the bodies of his daughter, her husband and granddaughter, as well as the new leader's widow, son Mojtaba, who were all killed in the same strike.
Hotels offer 50 percent discounts, schools, mosques and gyms have been equipped to receive mourners, and bus and train routes have been converted to serve major events.
After what authorities describe as a huge funeral procession in central Tehran on Monday, the body will be taken to the city of Qom, the seat of the seminary and the center of Iran's Shiite leadership, for a ceremony on Tuesday.
Another ceremony will be held in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday in the presence of prominent figures from the Shiite proxy network, and will be buried on Thursday, after another funeral procession, in a scene near the shrine of Imam al-Rida.
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