Thousands of people protested Friday in Iran’s capital after noon prayers over the ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeting the country.
Those in the crowd shouted: “Death to America! Death to Israel!”
“No compromise! No surrender! Fight with America!” they chanted at another point.
Some waved Iranian flags, while others carried placards decrying Israel.
Iranian state television aired footage from the protests at other cities in the country as well, with one demonstrator seen pulling a man dressed up in a President Donald Trump mask by his necktie.
One 47-year-old resident of Tehran, Hossein Gorji, offered his hard-line viewpoint and said military operations against Israel should continue.
“Israel’s attack against Iran was not much of an attack. Iran has just started the offensive. We will stand by them (the armed forces) until the end,” he told The Associated Press.
“Compromise never reached any result, and it won’t in future. How can we compromise with an enemy that breaches deals? Let’s uproot and throw it away and comfort all Muslims around the world,” said Gorji.
In Lebanon, Hundreds of supporters of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah gathered in Beirut’s southern suburbs after Friday afternoon prayers to demonstrate in support of Tehran in the ongoing Israel-Iran war.
Demonstrators carried the Iranian, Lebanese and Palestinian flags as well as that of Hezbollah, and chanted “death to America” and “death to Israel.” Some also chanted pledges of allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who is revered as religious authority by many Shiites.
Hezbollah suffered severe losses in a war with Israel that ended with a US-brokered ceasefire in November and has so far remained on the sidelines the Iran-Israel war.
In Iraq, thousands of supporters of influential Shiite cleric and political leader Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets on Friday in Sadr City, on the outskirts of Baghdad, in response to a call by al-Sadr to show support for Iran in its conflict with Israel.
The demonstration began after Friday prayers with protesters wearing white burial shrouds in a symbolic gesture of readiness to sacrifice. Some burned Israeli and US flags.
Iran-backed Iraqi militias have so far largely stayed out of the fray in the Israel-Iran war but have threatened to attack US forces and interests in Iraq and the region if Washington launches direct attacks on Iran.
