Iran postponed a planned farewell ceremony in Tehran for its late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed Saturday in U.S.-Israeli strikes as part of Operation Epic Fury.
The three-day program was scheduled to begin Wednesday at 10 p.m. local time at Imam Khomeini Prayer Hall, where large crowds were expected to gather to pay their respects, according to Tasnim, a semi-official Iranian news agency.
Hojjatoleslam Seyed Mohsen Mahmoudi, head of the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council of Tehran Province, said the postponement followed widespread requests to participate and the need to provide adequate infrastructure and facilities to accommodate attendees.
‘It was decided to hold the ceremony at a more appropriate time,’ he explained.
No additional reason for the postponement was given, and it was not immediately clear when the ceremony would be rescheduled.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Iranian leadership in a post on X that any successor who tries to ‘destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people’ will be an ‘unequivocal target for elimination.’
‘It does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides,’ Katz said.
The funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, drew massive crowds in the country’s capital on June 11, 1989, with an estimated 10.2 million people in attendance, roughly one-sixth of the nation’s population at the time.
According to Guinness World Records, it drew the largest percentage of a population ever recorded at a funeral.
Khamenei’s death triggers a closely watched succession process overseen by Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader.
‘The IRGC is a key stakeholder in this process, and will heavily influence its outcome,’ Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, told Fox News Digital.
