Thousands of Iranians turned out on Friday for an anti-Israel rally in Tehran to show support for the country’s leaders as the U.S.-Israeli bombardment continued.
Several senior Iranian officials showed up at the rally, marking Quds Day, an annual, government-sponsored event held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Among them were the president, the top security official, the chief of the judiciary and the foreign minister, according to social media posts and the Iranian media.
Videos published by Iranian state media indicated at least two explosions occurred near the rally. On his X account, the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, shared a video showing Iranians who had gathered for the demonstration pumping their fists and defiantly chanting “God is great,” as a large cloud of smoke from an apparent blast could be seen in the sky.
“Reaction of demonstrators when Tehran was bombed today is nightmare for aggressors,” Araghchi wrote in the post.
In another video published by the Tasnim news agency, a blast could be heard as the judiciary chief, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, was being interviewed on camera. Though others around him briefly ducked their heads at the noise, he finished his sentence. As his bodyguards gripped him, he told the interviewer: “The people are not afraid of these” noises.
Attendance at demonstrations like the Friday rally is heavily encouraged by the Iranian government, which offers incentives like free food, beverages, and transportation to protesters.
Other Iranians have spoken out against the government during the war, at great risk to themselves, and even cheered the deaths of some of its leaders. Iranians have said in interviews that there is an intense security presence now on Tehran’s streets, preventing any kind of anti-regime protest from occurring. Just two months ago, Iran’s government carried out a brutal response to mass demonstrations against the country’s clerical form of rule, killing thousands of protesters.
Quds Day, which takes its name from the Arabic word for Jerusalem, is held every year by the government in Iran as part of its larger ideological opposition to the state of Israel. Attendees on Friday chanted “Death to America” and carried posters bearing the image of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader killed at the start of U.S.-Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, and his son and successor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
Coffin-shaped boxes draped with American flags were laid on the street, and demonstrators walked atop them, sometimes pausing to stomp their feet.
The new supreme leader did not make an appearance, though President Masoud Pezeshkian did. The U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Friday that Mojtaba Khamenei had been “wounded and likely disfigured,” but did not offer evidence for that claim.
The rally came a day after the ayatollah issued his first public statement since being named supreme leader, in which he struck a defiant tone and signaled Iran would not back down in the war.
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