State funeral for slain top brass
Tehran: Iran held a state funeral on Saturday for some 60 scientists and commanders killed in its war with Israel, after its top diplomat condemned the latest White House tirade against supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
State television aired footage of thousands of black-clad mourners chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" as they held aloft photographs of the dead.
"Boom, boom, Tel Aviv," read one banner, referring to the retaliatory missile fire launched by Iran against Israel during their 12-day war.
State television showed mock-ups of ballistic missiles like those Iran fired at Israel alongside coffins draped in Iranian flags.
President Masoud Pezeshkian attended the ceremony as did Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Khamenei who used a walking cane after being wounded in an Israeli strike in the war, the television images showed.
But the supreme leader himself stayed away. Khamenei had delivered a video address on Thursday to proclaim "victory" in the conflict which ended with a truce earlier this week.
As the funeral procession wound its way across the sprawling metropolis, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi paid tribute to the war effort in a post on his Instagram account.
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