A demonstration for Jerusalem Day in Tehran on March 28, 2025. Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS.
Thousands of people demonstrated Friday in the streets of Tehran, as well as in Baghdad and other capitals of the Middle East, in annual gatherings organized at the end of Ramadan in solidarity with the Palestinians and against Israel.
For the second consecutive year, these demonstrations marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, launched in 1979 under the initiative of the Islamic Republic of Iran, are overshadowed by rising tensions in the Middle East.
On Friday, for the first time after four months of cease-fire, the Israeli army bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut. Israel had already resumed its strikes on the Gaza Strip in mid-March.
On Friday in Tehran, demonstrators waved Iranian and Palestinian flags, as well as those of Hezbollah, supported by Iran.
Many participants displayed signs reading "Death to America," "Death to Israel," and chanted anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans, as noted by an AFP journalist.
Similar gatherings took place across the country, according to images broadcast by state television.
In a video message broadcast Thursday, Iran"s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denounced the "tricks" and "false statements of the enemies" of the Islamic Republic.
The commemorations of Quds Day were launched in 1979 by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The marches call for the restitution of Jerusalem to the Palestinians and are traditionally held on the last Friday of Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims.
The authorities called on Iranians to participate massively in the demonstrations against Israel, Iran"s sworn enemy.
"The resistance will continue until al-Quds is liberated and the Zionist regime is destroyed," the armed forces" general staff said Thursday.
"The only solution to the Palestinian issue ... is through continued resistance and global solidarity to fight against the Zionist regime," it added.
'Right to the land'
Similar protests were held in Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, and even South Africa.
In Lebanon, a televised speech by Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem did not take place. The address, which was to be broadcast to his supporters in a hall in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a hundred meters from the site of an Israeli bombing, had to be canceled.
In the Iraqi capital, several hundred supporters of pro-Iran armed groups marched, brandishing flags of these factions, as well as Palestinian and Lebanese flags.
"No, no to America," participants chanted, trampling an Israeli flag on the street, according to images from AFPTV.
On the stage set up for the occasion, a decor represented the iconic Dome of the Rock Mosque, alongside portraits of several "Resistance" figures assassinated by Israel, including former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh, former Hamas chief.
"The Iraqi Islamic Resistance tells Palestine and its people that their right to the land and their right to resistance is a natural right," said Qadhim al-Fartoussi, an official of one of the armed groups, to the crowd.
'Battle against occupation'
In Yemen, where Iran-supported Houthi rebels provide unwavering support to the Palestinian cause, tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital Sanaa, Hodeida, Marib, and other regions of the country to commemorate Al-Quds Day.
In a square in Sanaa, demonstrators brandished automatic weapons, Palestinian and Yemeni flags, as well as Hezbollah"s yellow flags. They denounced Israeli strikes on Gaza and American strikes in Yemen.
Hamas welcomed this mobilization in capitals of the Arab and Muslim world.
"Jerusalem will remain at the heart of our battle against occupation," the Palestinian Islamist movement said in a statement, celebrating the "global popular movement supporting the Palestinian people and their just cause, and rejecting the brutal Zionist aggression against Gaza."
This is a translated article that originally appeared in French in AFP.