Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday delivered a eulogy for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at a funeral in Iran attended...
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei performs prayer at a funeral for victims of helicopter crash that killed Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Abdollahian, and others, in Tehran, Iran, May 22, 2024. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) Handout via REUTERS
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday delivered a eulogy for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at a funeral in Iran attended by prominent members of terrorist organizations.
Haniyeh opened his speech “on behalf of the Palestinian people persevering in the Land of Palestine,” as he extended his condolences for the death of Raisi and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran on Sunday.
Haniyeh also thanked Raisi and Iran for their continued support of the “resistance factions in Gaza” and for creating, financing, and directing a “resistance axis” of Islamic, anti-Western militant organizations across the Middle East.
“Palestine is not a political issue,” said Haniyeh, the politburo chief of Hamas and one of the Palestinian terrorist group’s most visible leaders. “It is the backbone of the ummah’s [worldwide Islamic nation’s] doctrine.”
He added, “The ‘Resistance’ [Hamas] on the land of Palestine represents the foremost trench not just for the Resistance Axis, but for the entire ummah.” Haniyeh thanked Iran for its steadfast support for Hamas amid its current war against Israel in Gaza, which he called a “great shock to the Zionist entity.”
Iran is the chief international sponsor of Hamas, providing the terrorist group with arms, funding, and training.
Beyond Haniyeh, Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led prayers and presided over the funeral proceedings.
“Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” he read in his Arabic commemorative passages.
Raisi was widely considered a potential successor to Khamenei as the highest power in the Islamic Republic’s government. Khamenei remained composed while reciting his Islamic mourning prayers and did not deliver a speech.
Haniyeh met with Khamenei in Tehran after the funeral.
Naim Qassem, the deputy head of Hezbollah, Iran’s powerful terrorist proxy based in Lebanon, was also in attendance on Wednesday, as were the prime ministers of Iraq, Armenia, and Tunisia, along with the chairman of Russia’s State Duma. Meanwhile, a crowd of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens attended the procession.
Hezbollah has been targeting northern Israel with drones and rockets, forcing tens of thousands of Israeli civilians to flee the northern part of the country bordering Lebanon, as the Jewish state has been fighting Hamas to the south in Gaza.
While politicians and terrorist organizations close to Iran paid their respects, Iranians at home and abroad have joined together in an outpouring of celebration over Raisi’s death.
In Tehran, fireworks were launched by Iranian citizens, and security forces were deployed to repress public demonstrations of joy. Iranians in the diaspora in cities across North America and Europe reacted by singing songs, dancing, and commemorating the event on social media.
Raisi is widely unpopular with Iranians opposed to Iran’s Islamist government. Considered a conservative hardliner even by the standards of the Islamic Republic’s ruling brass, Raisi has for decades been accused of major human rights abuses.
The UN, the US government, and human rights groups have documented and condemned how Iran notoriously executed thousands of political prisoners in 1988, when Raisi was deputy prosecutor of Tehran and part of a so-called “death committee” that ordered several of the killings. In that role, Raisi earned the nickname “the butcher of Tehran.”
Raisi’s administration also oversaw a bloody crackdown on anti-government demonstrations that erupted across Iran in Sept. 2022 and became known as the “Women, Life, Freedom” revolution. Iranian security forces were condemned by the international community for their brutal response to the protests, including the deaths of hundreds of people and the detainment of tens of thousands of others.
That wasn’t the first time Raisi was involved in a violent suppression of Iranian protesters. In Dec. 2019, the US government confirmed that the Iranian regime killed about 1,500 anti-government protesters as part of a crackdown by security forces on demonstrations the prior month.
The US Treasury Department sanctioned Raisi, who was judiciary chief at the time and had a direct role in the suppression effort, for “advancing” the regime’s “domestic and foreign oppression.”
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