A large number of Iranians on Saturday took to the streets across the country to mark the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy while voicing support for Palestinian in the Gaza Strip.
A few months after the Iranian Revolution in February 1979, Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy in Iran’s capital Tehran on Nov. 4. Iran commemorates the takeover every year by holding nationwide rallies.
As the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza rages on, causing a humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave, this year’s rallies also featured the expression of massive support for Palestinians and strong condemnation of Israel.
In Tehran, citizens and Iranian officials marched nearly two kilometers from Felestin (Palestine) square to the former U.S. embassy’s building in the morning, chanting anti-U.S. and anti-Israel slogans, waving the flags of Iran, Palestine and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, and holding photos of Palestinian children killed in recent Israeli attacks on Gaza.
The demonstrators maintained that the U.S. and Israel were complicit in the “crimes” against Palestinians and burned and trampled the flags of the two countries to express their anger.
In an address to the demonstrators in Tehran, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf listed some of the anti-Iran moves by the U.S. and condemned the ongoing Israeli attacks against civilians in Gaza, stressing that Iran believed that the “United States is the main party to blame for all these crimes.”
The demonstrators also called on Muslim states and governments to condemn Israeli “crimes” against the people of Gaza, the official news agency IRNA reported.
Rallies were also held in Isfahan, Mashhad, Hamedan, Kermanshah, Zanjan and Rasht, among other cities, IRNA added.
The Israel-Hamas conflict, raging for nearly a month, has led to the deaths of more than 9,200 Palestinians in Gaza. On the Israeli side, more than 1,400 people lost their lives, the vast majority in the Hamas military operation on Oct. 7, to which Israel responded with large-scale airstrikes, ground operations, and punitive measures that included a siege on the Gaza Strip.
