{"id":17431,"date":"2026-03-13T10:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/17431\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:25:08","slug":"thousands-rally-in-tehran-for-al-quds-demo-despite-ongoing-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/17431\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands rally in Tehran for al-Quds demo despite ongoing war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Despite ongoing airstrikes, thousands of Iranian government supporters are taking to the streets of Tehran on Friday to take part in anti-Israel demonstrations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The rallies are taking place on the occasion of al-Quds Day, which was introduced by former revolutionary leader ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The state-organized protests are directed against Israel and demand the &#8220;liberation of Jerusalem.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem. The background to this is Israel&#8217;s occupation of East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The annual demonstration to support Palestinian rights is traditional held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called on the population to participate despite the war. On X, he wrote on Thursday that the Iranian people should &#8220;disappoint Iran&#8217;s enemies by taking to the streets in greater numbers than ever before.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Eyewitnesses said the crowd was smaller than in previous years. They attributed the lower turnout mainly to two factors: many residents had left Tehran after the war began, while others feared potential drone attacks during the ceremony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They said that participants waved Iranian flags and chanted anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">State media showed images of people carrying portraits of the slain revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei and his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During the rallies, a loud explosion was heard in the city centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Fars news agency, which is closely linked to the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), published a video showing people hammering nails into coffins covered with US and Israeli flags.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Another video shows men trampling on a large US flag on the street. The flag reads &#8220;Down with America&#8221; in English.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A woman holds a poster showing slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (L) and his son, the new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, during a rally marking the annual Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saeid Zareian\/dpa\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e4a6cd46f257473f8ed53f16473e6488.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A woman holds a poster showing slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (L) and his son, the new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, during a rally marking the annual Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saeid Zareian\/dpa<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"People take part in a rally marking the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), that takes place annually on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saeid Zareian\/dpa\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5724ee4b324f8caf8b836ec984d55740.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>People take part in a rally marking the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), that takes place annually on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saeid Zareian\/dpa<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"People take part in a rally marking the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), that takes place annually on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saeid Zareian\/dpa\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/d3f4f9b6a319fe4204a1bae7cd6bbef5.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>People take part in a rally marking the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), that takes place annually on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saeid Zareian\/dpa<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"People take part in a rally marking the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), that takes place annually on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saeid Zareian\/dpa\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/b66c4680aaabb41483532f9fd7d2bd40.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>People take part in a rally marking the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), that takes place annually on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saeid Zareian\/dpa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite ongoing airstrikes, thousands of Iranian government supporters are taking to the streets of Tehran on Friday to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[327,9024,34,9025,2289,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-17431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tehran","8":"tag-ali-khamenei","9":"tag-holy-month-of-ramadan","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-jerusalem-day","12":"tag-mojtaba-khamenei","13":"tag-tehran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116221386724887241","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}