‘Trump’s murder is our responsibility’: At Khamenei’s funeral, calls for vengeance

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'Trump's murder is our responsibility': At Khamenei's funeral, calls for vengeance

Mourners waved Iranian flags, red flags symbolizing vengeance, and photos of Khamenei, chanting against the US and Israel.

4 min readJul 6, 2026 11:09 AM IST

First published on: Jul 6, 2026 at 11:09 AM IST

A man holds a sign reading "#kill_trump" as mourners gather for funeral ceremonies for slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and members of his family at the Imam Khomeini Mosalla Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran. (Photo: AP)

Hundreds of thousands of mourners packed Tehran this weekend for the funeral of assassinated former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, with some openly calling for the deaths of President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as reported by The Guardian.

The event marked the first time in months that Iran’s senior political and military leadership appeared together in public since the war with the US and Israel began. Khamenei, 86, was killed on February 28 alongside four family members when a joint US-Israeli strike hit his compound, opening the conflict. The funeral had been delayed throughout the fighting.

‘Why should we not kill the man who killed our Imam‘

Crowds began gathering before dawn, some staying overnight inside Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, ahead of prayers that began at 8am. Mourners waved Iranian flags, red flags symbolizing vengeance, and photos of Khamenei, chanting against the US and Israel. The Guardian reported the crowds were “vastly larger and more militant” than on the funeral’s opening day.

A poet, Mohammad Rasouli, addressed the crowd during a recitation shortly before prayers began, telling them, “Why is the most bastard man in the world still alive? The world is no longer a good place for Trump. Why should we not kill the man who killed our imam? It would be a disgrace if we did not.”

The Guardian described the remarks as scripted and officially sanctioned, adding that “most cheered enthusiastically.”

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Iran’s ambassador to Armenia, Khalil Shirgholami, wrote X that “you can kill people, but you can’t kill ideals,” adding that the West had “no civilisation, no history, no honour”. National Security Council secretary Mohammed Bagher Zolghadr said the crowd’s chants reflected both “resistance against enemies” and “revenge for the blood of the martyred leader.”

Messages scrawled near the coffins included one written in English: “Kill Trump.”

‘No compromise, no surrender, only revenge‘

That chant, repeated throughout the ceremony, captured a crowd the Guardian said was estimated unofficially at more than 2 million on the funeral’s opening day, packed into a mosque built to hold roughly 30,000. Some mourners wore white burial shrouds to signal willingness to die as martyrs, the outlet reported.

The Guardian reported the funeral marked the reemergence of top officials who had stayed largely out of public view during the war, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, and Revolutionary Guard chief Ahmad Vahidi. Three of Khamenei’s sons Mustafa, Massoud and Meysam appeared publicly for the first time since the war, standing beside their father’s coffin.

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Absent was Mojtaba Khamenei, named supreme leader ten days after his father’s death. The Guardian reported he has not appeared publicly or issued any recorded message in three months, and did not attend even his own wife’s funeral last week, amid reports Israel had threatened to kill him as well.

Prayers were led by a 97-year-old cleric from Qom, with coffins including Khamenei’s 14-month-old granddaughter drawing particular attention. Processions are expected to carry his body through Iran and Iraq before burial later this week at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace.

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