DUBAI: Hundreds of thousands of people chanted “Death to Israel” in rallies across Iran to mark the Islamic Revolution’s 45th anniversary on Sunday, with some burning US and Israeli flags amid the ongoing war between Israel and Tehran-backed Hamas.
President Ebrahim Raisi, in a televised speech, accused Tehran’s arch-foe the United States and some Western countries of backing “the Zionist regime’s (Israel) crimes against humanity in Gaza”.
State TV said millions had turned out at rallies and it showed large crowds chanting “Death to Israel, Death to America!”, a common practice during state-organised rallies on the anniversary of the 1979 revolution that toppled the US-backed monarch.
State media published a picture of some marchers hanging an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a noose.Israel’s four-month-old war on Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza has rippled across the Middle East, with groups backed by Iran mounting attacks on Israeli and US targets.
Earlier this month, US forces carried out strikes against Iran-aligned groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen in retaliation for a deadly attack on US troops at a remote outpost in Jordan.Backing the Palestinian cause has been a pillar of the Islamic Republic since the revolution that overthrew the US-backed shah, and a way for the country to fashion itself as a leader of the Muslim world.
Hamas is part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”, a regional alliance that includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, militia groups in Iraq and the Houthis who control a large part of Yemen.
Iran, which says all members of the alliance make their own decisions independently, has repeatedly declared that Tehran will not directly intervene in Gaza-related hostilities unless it is itself attacked by Israel or the United States.
The revolution anniversary marchers on Sunday included soldiers, students, clerics and senior political and military officials. Black-clad women with small children were among those flocking streets across the country, many carrying portraits of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
PARIS: French lawmakers will vote on Wednesday (today) on no-confidence motions which are all but certain to oust the...
TEHRAN: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has expressed doubts about new legislation imposing tougher penalties on...
DHAKA: Bangladesh on Tuesday summoned New Delhi´s ambassador after an attack on one of its consulates in India, the...
BRUSSELS, Belgium: EU countries agreed on Tuesday on a push for stricter anti-smoking rules, backing bans on smoking...
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that France and Saudi Arabia have the “will...
STRASBOURG, France: European countries on Tuesday approved downgrading the protection status of the wolf, a move...
CAIRO: Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas´s Fatah party have agreed to...
KABUL: Senior employees at several institutions offering nursing and midwifery courses in Afghanistan on Tuesday said...