Thousands of people gathered in Tehran on Friday for the funerals of seven members of the Revolutionary Guards killed in a strike in Syria that Iran blamed on Israel.
The Guards, including two generals, were killed Monday, with the airstrike leveling the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Damascus.
Israel has not commented on the strike, but analysts saw it as an escalation of its campaign against Iran and its regional proxies that runs the risk of triggering a wider war beyond the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Friday’s ceremony coincided with the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day commemoration when Iran and its allies stage marches in support of the Palestinians. Iran’s Press TV, an English-language government mouthpiece, reported that millions of people were rallying around the world, with pro-Palestinian rallies being held at 2,000 locations around Iran.
Iran has said that among the dead in the strike were two brigadier generals from the Guards’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force: Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi. (Read More)