Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, delivered a speech at the funeral service for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage, held in Tehran on Wednesday morning.
In his address at the University of Tehran, Haniyeh said he has taken part in the funeral of the Iranian president on behalf of the Palestinian nation and Gaza.
Paying tribute to President Raisi and his entourage, who died in a helicopter crash on May 19, the Hamas chief said the late Iranian president believed that the Al-Aqsa Storm operation that the Palestinian resistance forces carried out on October 7, 2023, had targeted ‘the heart of Israel’.
Referring to his meeting with President Raisi in the Islamic month of Ramadan, Haniyeh said the late president maintained that Palestine is the overriding issue of the Muslim world and that the Islamic Ummah should prepare the ground for the liberation of the Palestinian territories.
President Raisi also reaffirmed that the Islamic Republic of Iran would continu
e to support Palestine until the fulfillment of its goals, Haniyeh stated.
A huge crowd of people from all walks of life have attended the funeral service in the University of Tehran.
Mourners will then march in procession to the Azadi (Liberty) Square.
Separate funeral services were held in Tabriz and Qom yesterday, before the bodies were transferred to Tehran for people to bid farewell to the eight martyrs at the Grand Musalla (prayer hall) on Tuesday night.
The president will be laid to rest Thursday at noon in the holy city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, where the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) is located.
A helicopter carrying President Raisi and his entourage crashed in northwestern mountainous forests on Sunday.
The fatal accident happened as the president was returning from Khoda Afarin region in Iran’s northwestern province of East Azarbaijan after inaugurating a dam at the common border with the Republic of Azerbaijan.
The crash killed President Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahia
n, Friday prayers leader of Tabriz Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-e-Hashem, Governor of East Azarbaijan Malek Rahmati, the commander of the president’s security team, two pilots and a flight crew.
Source: National News Agency – Lebanon