TEHRAN — Among the tens of thousands of mourners gathered in central Tehran for the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are families of the schoolchildren from the southern city of Minab who, like the supreme leader, were bombed to death on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
At least 175 civilians were killed at the girls’ elementary school, most of them students, in what appeared to be a strike by a U.S. Tomahawk missile. So far, the United States has not taken responsibility or released the results of any investigation. In Iran, the children’s deaths have become a potent symbol for U.S.-Israeli brutality and an unjust war.
Parents and other family members made the 800-mile trip to the Iranian capital by train, car and bus, and on Sunday, they were brought to the Grand Mosalla religious center for the funeral prayers. The crowd swelled in size ahead of the prayers, with tens of thousands packing into the open-air complex.
Many mourners had hoped that Khamenei’s son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, would appear in public for the first time since his father’s assassination to lead the prayers, but he did not show, probably because of concerns for his safety.
Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a prominent theologian and member of the Council of Experts that chose Ali Khamenei’s successor, led the ceremony instead.
Also present Sunday was Ahmad Vahidi, the recently appointed commander of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a key member of the surviving regime, which has emerged emboldened and even more hard-line after months of attacks by two of the world’s most powerful militaries.
Vahidi, too, had been in hiding since the war. A shudder rippled through the crowd as people recognized him. After the prayer concluded, isolated chants broke out, invoking his name: “Vahidi!, Vahidi! Revenge! Revenge!”
The Minab school attack occurred on Feb. 28, the same day that Ali Khamenei was killed at his leadership compound, along with other members of his family and other senior officials.
Hanzaleh Salehi, 43, whose son was killed in the school strike, said he remembers hearing confirmation of the supreme leader’s death while he was in the morgue identifying his child’s body. Experiencing the two losses back to back left him feeling frozen, he said.
“We want to send our voice to the world,” Salehi said, wearing a T-shirt that showed his son’s framed portrait. “I want the world to realize how the Iranian people are treated. This was not the first crime, and it may not be the last.”
An invitation from the Iranian government to attend the proceedings, albeit under restricted conditions, including accompaniment by a government-provided guide and interpreter, has allowed The Washington Post its first opportunity to report from Iran since the war began. The views of people interviewed at the funeral events are unlikely to represent all of Iranian society, given the risks posed to those who have opposed or been critical of the government.
While the U.S. has not accepted responsibility for the attack, video evidence and Post reporting found that the school was on a U.S. target list, suggesting it was carried out by U.S. forces. The Pentagon said it launched an investigation, but more than four months later, no findings have been published.
In Iran, the strike is a national tragedy. Memorials to the children have been installed in government offices, businesses and at Iranian embassies abroad. In Tehran, an installation of backpacks, flowers and children’s shoes commemorates those killed in Minab at the capital’s international airport.
One of the Minab booths set up for Khamenei’s funeral displayed dozens of portraits of the children above a chalkboard, exercise books and school desks.
Fatimeh Yavari, 39, from Semnan, east of Tehran, stopped to take pictures of the display with her two children. The Minab children “are like my own children. I cried for all of them like I was burying my own child,” Yavari said, growing emotional behind her sunglasses. “It was a great tragedy.”
Minab is a small town that’s home to large military installations in a province, Hormozgan, that is a critical export hub near the port city of Bandar Abbas.
Yasir Pour Jomeh, 39, a dock laborer, traveled 24 hours by bus and private car to Tehran so he could help oversee a Minab booth during the funeral. He said that after the Minab attack, there was a surge of support for the government in the area.
“People realized how supportive the supreme leader was of the people,” Jomeh said. “Even some who were against the establishment turned back.”
After the public viewing of Khamenei’s body ends on Saturday evening, his casket will be carried on an hours-long funeral procession through the Iranian capital.
That procession is expected to draw even larger crowds that those at Mosalla, and the day-long event could prove to be one of the most logistically difficult portions of the ceremony.
After the funeral procession, Khamenei’s body will be flown to the Iranian city of Qom, a center of Islamic learning, before it is brought to the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, both homes to holy Shiite shrines that are pilgrimage sites. Finally, Khamenei will be buried in his hometown, Mashhad, in eastern Iran.
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