{"id":531002,"date":"2026-07-08T09:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T09:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/531002\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T09:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T09:51:09","slug":"funeral-events-for-irans-slain-supreme-leader-khamenei-under-way-in-iraq-us-israel-war-on-iran-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/531002\/","title":{"rendered":"Funeral events for Iran\u2019s slain Supreme Leader Khamenei under way in Iraq | US-Israel war on Iran News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Khamenei\u2019s coffin made its way through the streets of Najaf to the shrine of Imam Ali, Prophet Muhammad\u2019s son-in-law.<\/p>\n

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Published On 8 Jul 20268 Jul 2026<\/p>\n

Thousands of mourners have gathered in Iraq\u2019s Najaf as funeral processions for Iran\u2019s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei began in the holy city.<\/p>\n

Iraqi authorities declared Wednesday a public holiday, with procession ceremonies starting at 6am local time (03:00 GMT) in Najaf.<\/p>\n

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Iran began six days of public funeral ceremonies<\/a> for Khamenei on Saturday, including a day dedicated to neighbouring Iraq.<\/p>\n

It hopes the marathon ceremonies will project strength and unity amid the US-Israel war on Iran, which began with strikes by the two countries on Tehran that killed Khamenei and several of his relatives on February 28.<\/p>\n

After a massive procession in Iran\u2019s holy city of Qom<\/a>, Iraqi officials and senior politicians received Khamenei\u2019s remains on Tuesday night at Najaf international airport in the presence of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and the late leader\u2019s eldest son, Mostafa Hosseini Khamenei.<\/p>\n

Khamenei\u2019s coffin made its way through the streets of Najaf to the shrine of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad\u2019s son-in-law and the first Shia imam.<\/p>\n

Najaf is \u201cthe third holiest site in Shia Islam after Mecca and Medina\u201d, said Al Jazeera\u2019s Jack Hewson, reporting from Najaf.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city is used to seeing huge numbers of pilgrims for religious events, and this seems to be ranking among those in its significance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one knows the exact number of mourners here in Najaf, but it\u2019s pretty clear that we\u2019re looking at hundreds of thousands,\u201d Hewson added.<\/p>\n

Khamenei\u2019s burial will take place on Thursday in his hometown of Mashhad, in northeast Iran.<\/p>\n

Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not yet appeared in public since taking over as the supreme leader shortly after his father\u2019s assassination, has been notably absent from the processions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Officials have said he was wounded in the air strikes that killed his father, but the severity of his injuries remains unclear.<\/p>\n

After Najaf, Khamenei\u2019s body will be flown to Karbala, about 60km (37 miles) north, for another procession that will culminate at the shrines of Imam Hussein, the third Shia imam, and his brother Abbas.<\/p>\n

Esmail Qaani, head of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 Quds Force, hailed the \u201cspiritual bond\u201d between the two Shia-majority countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extensive planning for this historical event by the Iraqi government and people shows the depth of the spiritual bond between the two great nations of Iraq and Iran to the whole world,\u201d said Qaani.<\/p>\n

Iraqi Mohammed al-Bayati, who travelled for hours to Najaf, said it was \u201can opportunity not to be missed to participate in the funeral of the person who challenged the power of America and Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamenei\u2019s coffin made its way through the streets of Najaf to the shrine of Imam Ali, Prophet Muhammad\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,87,6605,47,43,5033,7319,40,38,41,39,162198],"class_list":["post-531002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-obituaries","tag-religion","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-israel-war-on-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}