Citizens across the Islamic Republic today paid tribute to President Ebrahim Raisi, Chancellor Hossein Amir Abdollahian, and their companions as the funeral procession continued in Iran.
Leader of the Revolution and Leader of the Islamic Republic Ali Khamenei led prayers over the martyrs’ bodies at Tehran University before a funeral procession in the city.
According to IRNA news agency, more than 40 high-ranking foreign delegations will participate in Wednesday afternoon’s ceremony to honour President Raisi and his companions who died in the 19 May helicopter crash in the northwestern part of the country.
Among the attendees, about 10 delegations are represented at the level of heads of state, nearly 20 will be led by ministers, parliamentary speakers and special envoys, the publication said.
Offering his condolences, the head of the Hamas movement’s Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, recalled Raisi’s words at their meeting last Ramadan when he reaffirmed that «the Palestinian cause is at the heart of the nation’s causes, and resistance is a strategic choice for the liberation project».
Speaking from Tehran University, Haniyeh said that President Raisi emphasised the Islamic Republic’s support for the Resistance until the aspirations of the Palestinian people and the nation are achieved.
At the same time, he stressed that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood represented an earthquake that struck the Zionist entity and caused a historic transformation worldwide.
The bodies of Raisi, Abdollahian and their companions arrived at the Imam Khomeini Chapel in Tehran, the capital’s great prayer hall.
Millions of Iranians expressed their sorrow yesterday in a solemn public procession in Qom, which included stops at the mausoleum of Fatima al-Masuma and a route through the streets to the Jamkaran Mosque.
The city of Tabriz, the capital of East Azerbaijan province, received the bodies, the beginning of the farewell to the martyrs of the Islamic Republic.
Tomorrow, the people of South Khorasan will say a final farewell to the Iranian leaders in the town of Biryand and the funeral and burial ceremony for President Raisi’s body will be held in the city of Mashhad.
President Raisi, Minister Abdollahian, East Azerbaijan Governor Malek Rahmati and the Friday prayer imam of Tabriz (provincial capital) Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem were returning on Sunday from a ceremony to inaugurate a dam on Iran’s border with Azerbaijan when their helicopter crashed in mountainous areas in the Varzaghan region.
