{"id":750363,"date":"2026-07-08T11:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/750363\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T11:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:14:12","slug":"khamenei-funeral-in-najaf-draws-2m-participants-shafaq-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/750363\/","title":{"rendered":"Khamenei funeral in Najaf draws 2M+ participants &#8211; Shafaq News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                            2026-07-08T10:03:06+00:00<\/p>\n<p>                                    font<\/p>\n<p>                                            Enable Reading Mode<\/p>\n<p>\n                                        A-<br \/>\n                                        A<br \/>\n                                        A+\n                                    <\/p>\n<p>Shafaq News-<br \/>\nBaghdad<\/p>\n<p>More than<br \/>\ntwo million people joined the funeral procession of late Iranian Supreme Leader<br \/>\nAli Khamenei in Najaf on Wednesday, while around 4,300 Iraqi and foreign<br \/>\njournalists covered the event, the Higher Committee for the Funeral Ceremonies<br \/>\nannounced.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783504924662.webp\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Committee<br \/>\nspokesperson Saad Maan told Shafaq News that live coverage began at 5 a.m. local<br \/>\ntime and continued throughout the day, with media coverage including nearly<br \/>\n1,000 accredited international journalists and about 3,300 Iraqi media workers<br \/>\nrepresenting television channels, news agencies, radio stations, newspapers,<br \/>\nand digital platforms. Around 20 satellite news gathering (SNG) vehicles were<br \/>\nalso deployed, most providing clean feeds to media organizations.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783504933547.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\nceremonies, which began in Najaf in the morning, drew crowds that <a href=\"https:\/\/shafaq.com\/en\/society\/PMF-2-3M-participate-in-Khamenei-funeral-in-Najaf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">participants<\/a><br \/>\ncompared to the Ashura and Arbaeen commemorations, when millions of Shiite<br \/>\nMuslims gather in Najaf and Karbala to mourn Imam Hussein bin Ali, the third<br \/>\nShiite Imam.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783504944917.webp\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Following<br \/>\nthe Najaf procession, Khamenei\u2019s body was scheduled to be transferred to<br \/>\nKarbala for additional funeral rites, where security officials expect between<br \/>\nsix and seven million mourners to attend. The body is set to return to Iran on<br \/>\nJuly 9 for burial in the northeastern city of Mashhad.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783504959424.webp\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026-07-08T10:03:06+00:00 font Enable Reading Mode A- A A+ Shafaq News- Baghdad More than two million people joined the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,32015,321768,321767,302718,3,32398,452,453],"class_list":["post-750363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-journalists","tag-khamenei-funeral","tag-khamenei-funeral-in-najaf-draws-2m-participants","tag-najaf","tag-news","tag-participants","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}