Khamenei's Funeral Profiles a Defiant Iran

 

New leader of Iran Mojtaba Khamenei shows new way for leaders of countries at war these days – don’t show up in public, don’t give even nicely talking enemy a chance to attack you and your family. A drone that arrived at bedroom window of Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu confirms this idea.

 

The drone strike that struck the bedroom window of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea occurred in October 2024, launched by Hezbollah.

 

While the premise regarding public appearances is noted, Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has notably remained out of public view since succeeding his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in February 2026. State media has broadcasted written statements read by anchors, and he was kept away from his father's funeral in Tehran in July 2026 over ongoing assassination fears.

“Large crowds gathered in Tehran as Iran began six days of funeral ceremonies for its slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in what the Islamic Republic is framing as a show of defiance against the West.

 

Iranian authorities predicted that as many as 20 million people would turn out to honor Khamenei, who was killed alongside several family members in the first wave of Israeli and U.S. airstrikes on Tehran more than four months ago.

 

Thousands of black-clad mourners began convening at dawn Saturday outside Tehran's Grand Mosalla mosque, where Khamenei's body has lain in state since Friday. The body will later tour several sites around the country, and go to Iraq, before being buried in Khamenei's birthplace in eastern Iran.

 

Ahead of the ceremonies, foreign dignitaries convened to pay their respects, including Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, and He Wei, vice chairman of China's top lawmaking body. Pakistan, Iraq, India, Turkey and other countries also sent representatives.

 

State media showed five simple caskets wrapped in Iranian flags inside the mosque, including a small one containing the body of Khamenei's 1-year-old granddaughter, who Iran said was killed in the airstrike alongside him.

 

The Islamic Republic will seek to use the mass gatherings to galvanize supporters amid a fragile ceasefire with the U.S. following months of war. President Trump on Friday used a speech marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. to say that America had "knocked the hell out of Iran."

 

"They want to settle so badly. We gave them a week off for a funeral, because we're nice," Trump told the crowd, an apparent reference to events commemorating Khamenei.

 

Hossein Ansari, a translator who planned to join the final burial ceremony on July 9 in the holy city of Mashhad, said the crowds would "show to those inside and outside the country that, unlike what is being portrayed in the West, the majority of the people respected him in the country even if they were not that religious."

 

Days before the funeral, shops in Tehran closed and shopping center parking lots filled up, as crowds descended on the capital. The state funeral of Khamenei's predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989, drew 10 million mourners, officials estimated, and prompted chaotic scenes in which organizers nearly lost control of his coffin.

 

The funeral in Tehran will last for three days, with the airspace over the capital partially closed, before the body is moved Tuesday to the holy city of Qom.

 

Wednesday, Khamenei's casket will be taken to Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, where Iran supports numerous armed groups, and where many among the Shia majority population regard Khamenei as a religious authority. The late ayatollah will be buried Thursday in his birth city of Mashhad in eastern Iran.

 

Iranian authorities haven't announced whether Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader's son and successor, will appear during the ceremonies, but Iranian state media Saturday said three senior clerics, and not Mojtaba, would lead prayers at the burial next week. Mojtaba was injured in the airstrike that killed his father, wife and other relatives on the opening day of the war and hasn't been seen in public.

 

Putting on a show of resistance against foreign enemies, often to the death, has been a pillar of the Islamic Republic's propaganda for nearly 50 years.

 

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a longtime power broker and chief negotiator, this week called the funeral "a renewal of a nation's covenant with the glorious path of the martyrs," and a reminder of "the values of the Islamic Revolution."

 

Khamenei leaves behind an Iran that for decades has been bitterly divided. A whole generation grew up under repression and economic collapse and came of age hating him, said Narges Bajoghli, associate professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

 

But the recent war has changed many people's perception, she said. For many Iranians, the regime's ability to survive and inflict pain on its enemies, including with attacks on U.S. bases and by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, vindicated Khamenei's hard-line strategy.

 

"That doesn't erase the domestic record," Bajoghli said. "But it's shifting what he represents in death: from a repressive figure many wanted gone, to the architect of a strategy that, in the end, kept the country intact against its gravest modern threat."” [1]

 

1. World News: Khamenei's Funeral Profiles a Defiant Iran. Sune Engel Rasmussen; Faucon, Benoit.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 06 July 2026: A7.