Iranians mourn Khamenei as they gather for first Friday prayers during war | Israel-Iran Conflict News

Worshipers wave Iranian flags and chant slogans against the United States and Israel, as they gather to pray amid the attacks and Ramadan.

Iranian worshipers, many of whom hold portraits of the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have gathered in Tehran and other cities for the first Friday prayers since the US-Israel war began in the country seven days ago.

People chanted anti-American and anti-Israel slogans as they gathered for midday prayers on Friday during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, unfazed by fierce shelling in the capital, an Al Jazeera team on the ground reported.

Iranian flags were also waved as people prepared to pray, in a sign of support for the Iranian government amid ongoing attacks, including an attack in the early hours of the conflict that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Images shared by Iranian media showed crowds of men and women dressed in black heading to an open space in front of the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in the capital.

In the background of one video, a man speaking through a loudspeaker mourned Khamenei, describing him as “the embodiment of piety and guardianship in our time,” while others, sitting on prayer mats, wept openly.

Photographs showed worshipers marching in a demonstration against the US-Israel war after prayers.

Similar scenes were seen in images from other cities in Iran, including Ilam and Borujerd in the west and Zahedan in the southeast, AFP reported.

The prayers were held amid waves of US and Israeli attacks on Tehran and other Iranian cities, following threats from US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that bombing was “about to increase dramatically”.

The latest attacks in the capital hit a military academy and sites near a street housing key political offices, where Khamenei was killed on Saturday, as well as residential buildings, parking lots and gas stations, according to reports.

Prayers in the midst of war

Worshipers in many Middle Eastern countries observed the third Friday prayers of Ramadan amid unprecedented threats and disruptions amid the ongoing war.

As US and Israeli strikes hit Iran, the Israeli military also continued its attacks in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut. Large numbers of Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, amid Israeli orders to issue threats of forced displacement in targeted areas.

Meanwhile, countries across the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, have been targeted by Iranian drones or missiles in retaliatory attacks, primarily against the American or Israeli presence.

And in occupied East Jerusalem, Israel’s Civil Administration said it had canceled Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, in the latest restrictions on activity at the complex.

Head of the Civil Administration, Brigadier General Hisham Ibrahim, said on Thursday via the Israeli military’s Al Munasiq platform that the decision was made in light of Iran’s launch of retaliatory attacks against “Israel and the entire region.”