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Iranian President Raisi’s Memorial Muted Amid Public Discontent
A picture of the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is seen on his coffin during a funeral ceremony held in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 21, 2024. Photo: Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Thousands of Iranians turned out to mourn President Ebrahim Raisi in the city of Tabriz on Tuesday, after he was killed in a helicopter crash near the Azerbaijan border over the weekend along with his foreign minister and seven others.
State TV broadcast live images of mourners, many of them dressed in black, beating their chests while a truck covered in white flowers carrying the caskets wrapped in the national flag was driven slowly through the crowd.
“Everyone has come to bid farewell to the martyred president and his companions regardless of their faction, ethnicity, or language,” said Tabriz lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian.
However, although state TV said a large crowd appeared in Tabriz, some insiders see a stark contrast in public grief compared with past commemorations for the deaths of other senior figures in the Islamic Republic’s 45-year history.
While Iran proclaimed five days of mourning for Raisi, there was little of the emotional rhetoric that accompanied the death of Qasem Soleimani, a senior commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards killed by a US missile in 2020 in Iraq, whose funeral drew huge crowds of mourners, weeping with sorrow and rage.
Raisi’s body was flown from Tabriz, the closest major city to the remote crash site, to Tehran airport before heading to the holy Shi’ite Muslim city of Qom. From there, it will return to the capital to lie at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla Mosque before being transferred to his hometown of Mashahd, in eastern Iran, for burial on Thursday.
Mourners carried posters bearing images of Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the Friday prayer leader of Tabriz city, and other officials who were also killed in the crash.
DEEPENING CRISIS
The death of the president came at a time of deepening crisis between the clerical leadership and society at large over issues from tightening social and political controls to economic hardship.
To restore damaged legitimacy following a historic low turnout of around 41 percent in March’s parliamentary election, Iran‘s rulers must stir up public enthusiasm to secure high participation in the early presidential election that will be held on June 28.
But Iranians still have painful memories of the handling of nationwide unrest sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian-Kurdish woman in 2022, which was quelled by a violent state crackdown involving mass detentions and even executions.
Widespread public anger at worsening living standards and pervasive graft may also keep many Iranians at home.
Some analysts say that millions have lost hope that Iran‘s ruling clerics can resolve an economic crisis fomented by a combination of US sanctions, mismanagement, and corruption.
Raisi enacted the hardline policies of his mentor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, aimed at entrenching clerical power, cracking down on opponents, and adopting a tough line on foreign policy issues such as the nuclear talks with Washington to revive Iran‘s 2015 nuclear pact.
Any candidate entering the race must first be vetted by the Guardian Council, a hardline watchdog that has often disqualified even prominent conservative and moderate officials, meaning the broad direction of policy is unlikely to change.
While widely seen as a leading candidate to take over from the 85-year-old supreme leader when he dies, two sources said Raisi’s name had been taken off a list of potential successors some six months ago because of his sagging popularity.
Raisi’s death has introduced “great uncertainty” in the succession, analysts said, stirring rivalries in the hardliners’ camp over who will succeed Khamenei as the country’s ultimate authority.
The post Iranian President Raisi’s Memorial Muted Amid Public Discontent first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hostage Deal talks Stalled as Hamas Rejects New Israeli Framework – Report
US President Donald Trump and Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani attend a signing ceremony in Doha, Qatar, May 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
i24 News – i24NEWS’s diplomatic affairs correspondent, Amichai Stein, reported Sunday evening that negotiations over a potential hostage deal have hit a standstill.
According to political sources, “the negotiations are stalled, Hamas is refusing the new framework presented by Israel.”
Throughout the day, no direct negotiation meetings were held. Instead, the small security cabinet is set to convene this evening to discuss the state of the talks.
There is also speculation of a potential meeting between Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and US President Donald Trump to address the impasse and broader regional dynamics.
In parallel, Arab diplomats have reportedly issued a warning to Israel regarding its plan to construct a “humanitarian city” in Gaza. According to sources, diplomats cautioned that the initiative could harm the fragile fabric of the Abraham Accords and inflame regional tensions.
The post Hostage Deal talks Stalled as Hamas Rejects New Israeli Framework – Report first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran: ‘Israel Will Pay the Price’ for Allegedly Trying to Kill Pezeshkian
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian delivers a speech during the National Army Day parade ceremony in Tehran, Iran, April 18, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was slightly injured in the leg during an Israeli airstrike, according to a report on Sunday by the Iranian news agency Fars, prompting Iran to launch a widespread probe to root out suspected moles that infiltrated the Islamic Republic’s highest ranks.
Al Jazeera cited an unnamed Iranian official who said, “The assassination attempt on President Pezeshkian will not go unanswered – Israel will pay the price.”
According to Fars, which has ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the attack took place on the morning of Monday, June 16, while a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council was held on the lower floors of a building in western Tehran. In addition to the Iranian president, Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the head of the judiciary Mohseni Ajei, as well as other senior regime officials were attending this meeting.
Six bombs or missiles targeted the entry and exit points of the building in order to block evacuation routes and disrupt air circulation, the report said. This operation is said to have been inspired by the elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last year. Following the explosions, power was cut on that floor, but the leaders managed to escape through an emergency exit prepared in advance.
Pezeshkian and several other officials sustained minor leg injuries during the evacuation, according to the agency. Given the accuracy of the information used in the attack, the media outlet reports that authorities are investigating the possibility of collaboration with Israel.
Official confirmation and reactions
A few days earlier, a high-ranking military leader in the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaei, had stated on state television that Israel had “attacked six locations where the Supreme National Security Council had gathered, but none of its members had suffered even minor injuries.”
Pezeshkian had previously accused Israel of having attempted to assassinate him. “They tried, yes,” he told American journalist Tucker Carlson during an interview last week. “They acted accordingly, but they failed.”
The post Iran: ‘Israel Will Pay the Price’ for Allegedly Trying to Kill Pezeshkian first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hezbollah Violates Ceasefire 7 Times a Day on Average, IDF Figures Show
A drone view of buildings in Lebanon, next to the Israel-Lebanon border, following the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, as seen from Metula in northern Israel, Dec. 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
i24 News – The Shiite jihadists of Hezbollah violate the ceasefire agreement with Israel more than seven times a day on average, according to Israel Defense Forces data obtained by i24NEWS and made public for the first time on Saturday.
Israel has flagged upward of 1,200 violations by Hezbollah in its report to the US-led five-country monitoring panel tasked with supervising the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.
Of these, 650 violations were relayed to the Lebanese army for handling, while the rest of the times the IDF responded by attacking the violators.
The Lebanese army has identified 390 additional violations on its own initiative and filed a report saying that it had handled them.
Thus official data shows that the Lebanese army handled 52% of all violations, and 440 of the targets Israel flagged by Israel.
The majority of the infractions the Lebanese army manages to stem are concentrated in the south of the country.
The post Hezbollah Violates Ceasefire 7 Times a Day on Average, IDF Figures Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.