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‘We are Iran’s true missiles’: millions gather in Tehran for day four of Ali Khamenei’s funeral

Iranians poured in vast numbers on to the central thoroughfare of Tehran on the fourth day of mourning for the assassinated former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, claiming their defiance through months of on-off war had only made them stronger as many called for revenge. For those in the procession, it was as much a display of patriotism as mourning: a demonstration that Iran, as an ancient civilisation, had uniquely taken on the world’s greatest superpower and survived. “We the people are Iran’s true missiles,” one banner read. Vengeful chants against the US president, Donald Trump, could be heard while walking down the lightly policed and tree-lined Azadi Street towards Revolution Square. But there were also a sense of quiet release for some of those present, as if this was their first moment to share their survival– a moment to catch breath and continue, proud of Iran’s identity if not their government. “Welcome to our Iran” was the most common greeting to the stranger in their midst. Iranian officials are skilled at putting on a show, and all the ingredients of an Iranian march were on display. Drums and chants filled the air, vast flags were waved from lorrieswhile many placards were written in English and Farsi. Families with children in buggies and elderly people in wheelchairs joined men in “Louis Vuitton” T-shirts, and women with sequined chadors or embroidered black visors on the procession. Everyone was lightly sprayed with water to be cooled from the 36C heat. It was a sharp contrast to the sadness and religiosity of the prayers in the Grand Mosalla mosque at the start of the six-day funeral for Khamenei. “Of course, Iran has won the war, take a look at the population in the streets. If Trump dies today, will people attend his funeral,” asked Fatima Zadeh, who was part of the procession. “I want the war to restart, we want to destroy the oppressors and we are after revenge. These people are here not to mourn and shed tears, they came here to become united and gain strength,” she said. Ali Sayadian, a cleric from Yasuj also showed little sign of forgiveness, and said he had travelled 1,000km to Tehran because he was “indebted” to Khamenei’s leadership that he said had made Iran powerful. “We want revenge,” he said. “Someone has come here and killed our leader in his house with his family, our great man. It is our right to want to exact revenge.” He claimed the procession had a message for the whole world and those who doubted the internal support for the Islamic Republic. “These people you see on the street? You cannot say they are all poor, you cannot say they are all rich, you cannot say they are from one specific geographical location, they have come from all over Iran. This is the voice of the Iranian nation,” he said. Inevitably those that travel miles to attend a funeral of the supreme leader – one expert claimed the average distance was a 1,000 miles – are a self-selecting sample. Those that chose not to attend may have a different view of the choices the supreme leader had required Iran to make in search of its independence. Even those in the procession may have divergent views or their own reasons for attending. One young woman wearing a chador walked alongside me asking under her breath urgently to speak. “Do you know about the shah and the crown prince? There is still a revolution happening. We will not lose. It is not over,” she whispered, before she sensed too many ears may be listening and vanished into the crowd. But others were full of remorse that they had not done more to protect the supreme leader, a man they regarded as a father of the nation. Maryam Ghiyasi, a doctor, said: “Our leaders called on us to keep our head up. We are ashamed because we did not do enough when he was alive. He was a leader that wanted to make Iran strong”. Her husband, Hamid Razavi, an engineer, praised Iran’s leadership for being the first in a 200 hundred years to sign a peace treaty that did not see Iran giving up foreign land. Ali Hovayzavi, a software engineer for accountancy firms, said: “I am here for so many reasons – to make some people hopeful and to make some people hopeless”. He said he had narrowly avoided the bombs in Tehran. “I was not frightened. Everyone somewhere will die and no one except God specifies when and where and how you die. Even if there are many bombs surrounding me, and God does not want me to die, I will not die.” Some in the procession, meanwhile, accosted reporters to say Iran’s leaders now needed to race to build a nuclear weapon. “Would Japan have been attacked at Hiroshima if it had nuclear weapons?” asked Reza Aziz. “Would Russia be safe after the Ukraine invasion? Why is it OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons and not to sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty?” Standing in the shade of a bus stop with a “kill Trump” poster, Mohammad Mousabvi, 50, a gymnastics coach, saw this as a clash of civilisations. “Yes I came to preserve the memory of our imam, but I also came to confront Trump. This road is the pathway of the Islamic civilisation and with the help of God it will prevail over the civilisation of neoliberalism. “We have taught and continued to teach the westerners that western civilisation is nothing but a dead end. The revenge of our leader is through decimating Israel and America for ever. Our civilisation is based on theprophet Mohammed, Moses, Jesus, but the western civilisation is made of the people of Epstein Island.” All this was spoken in a tone of complete equanimity. Moftabva Karbvasi, a professor at the medical school in Isfahan, standing outside Tehran University’s gates, delivered a short dissertation on what he said was the US’s role in building Islamic State in a bid to discredit Islam in the west. “But the world is becoming more familiar with our religion day by day, and we can use this moment when the world looks again at Iran, because for the first time America knows it dare not attack us again,” Karbvasi said.

Hamas offers to hand over authority in Gaza to US-backed administration

Hamas has announced its intention to hand over governing authority in Gaza after two decades in power, and has invited a US-backed interim administration to take over the running of the Palestinian territory. It was not immediately clear how far Monday’s announcement would go towards strengthening an only partially observed ceasefire in Gaza or improving conditions in the besieged coastal strip which is still in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. While announcing that it was ready to hand over security as part of a transition, the Hamas statement made no promise to disarm unilaterally as Israel and the US have demanded. The interim administration to which Hamas has offered to transfer governance, known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), has been blocked from entering Gaza by Israel since its creation in January as part of a US-brokered ceasefire, adding further doubt to the timing of any future handover. Analysts said the Hamas announcement was largely a symbolic gambit aimed at reviving a stalled peace process that has blocked reconstruction and humanitarian relief for Gaza’s surviving 2.1 million population. They also said the move was designed to counter Israeli-led proposals to limit relief, reconstruction and NCAG governance to a tiny proportion of Gaza’s population in purpose-built villages in the roughly 60% of Gaza under direct Israeli army control. The Trump administration has given backing to the plan for which officials have variously referred to as a “humanitarian city”, “alternative safe communities”, or “New Rafah” – but which the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has called a “concentration camp”. Mohammed al-Farra, the head of the Hamas administration, announced his resignation and the handover of power to NCAG. He suggested that Hamas would end its political direction of Gaza governance immediately but that civil servants and public workers would remain in their jobs in a professional capacity pending NCAG’s arrival. “After I have ensured that all necessary preparations have been completed for the handover of the governmental system in the Gaza Strip, I hereby tender my resignation from my positions as chairman of the governmental work follow-up committee in the Gaza Strip and chairman of the governmental emergency committee,” al-Farra wrote, referring to two different titles Hamas adopted for its government in Gaza since its complete seizure of power in 2007. A Hamas spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, told Agence France-Presse: “Hamas has taken a new step in that it will no longer be in charge of the Gaza Strip, in order to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination.” The prospect of a political transition still appears remote. The NCAG is overseen by the Board of Peace established by Donald Trump as part of a ceasefire plan his administration brokered in October. However, its 13 current members, mostly prominent Palestinian professionals, have been prevented from entering Gaza by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government, and have been stuck in Cairo since being brought together in January. The NCAG chair, Ali Shaath, wrote on social media on Monday that the committee was “fully prepared to assume its national responsibilities as soon as the necessary resources and capabilities are available”. In a report to the UN security council in May, the Trump-appointed high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, pinned blame on Hamas for the impasse in the peace process. Hamas has made clear it will not give up its arms while Israel directly controls more than 60% of Gaza, commits wholesale ceasefire violations and backs Palestinian paramilitary groups inside the territory. Mladenov was widely criticised for lack of impartiality in failing to hold Israel to account for its violations. The Board of Peace’s response to the Hamas declaration on Monday was noncommittal, saying only it had “taken note” of the announcement. “Ultimately, our assessment will be guided by actions, not promises, to meet the critical needs of the people of Gaza,” the board said on its social media account. “The core principle remains one authority, one law and one weapon. This means the consolidation of all weapons under the control of the NCAG,” the statement said. Max Rodenbeck, the Israel-Palestine project director at the International Crisis Group, said: “Given its very limited leverage and the absurdly unending misery in Gaza, and given the Board of Peace’s insistence on conditioning any progress on Hamas’s disarmament, while ignoring Israel’s daily airstrikes and efforts to capture more land, the group is keen to find some way to break the logjam.” He added: “In the absence of any ‘political horizon’ for Palestinians it cannot just lay down its weapons, but it can at least signal its willingness to give up political power. This puts the onus back on the [Board of Peace] to show some flexibility.” The Palestinian Authority and its Arab and European backers are struggling to shape US policy, and persuade the administration to stick to the Trump peace plan envisaging reconstruction and new governance in the whole of the Gaza Strip – rather than just in the Israeli army-run part of it, where there are hardly any Palestinians, as Israel is proposing with support from the United Arab Emirates. “Hamas knows that if NCAG just moves into New Rafah, it would be delegitimised as the ruler of bantustans or a concentration camp,” said Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Hamas is trying to recapture the initiative. They are trying to recapture the initiative and circumvent the roadblock created by the New Rafah plan,” Shehada said. “Even if they agree to disarm unilaterally and do everything they are asked to do, Hamas knows Netanyahu will not allow reconstruction anywhere in Gaza before elections,” he added. The Israeli prime minister is struggling to keep his far-right coalition together before Israel is due to vote by late October and diplomats in the region expect little progress on Gaza’s future at least until then.

Millions join funeral procession for Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei

A crowd of “millions” assembled on Monday for the funeral procession of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The scale and depth of the march, however engineered, represents an extraordinary turnaround for a country that only seven months ago was gripped by street protests at which thousands of people were killed by government security forces. Many will say the assembly was a monument to a misconceived war launched on Iran by Donald Trump in February. The throng – estimated as millions by state media – moved from east to west, through Tehran from Revolution Square to Azadi Square, after the two-day funeral of the supreme leader and members of his family in the Grand Mosalla mosque in Tehran. The mourners wore black clothing and carried flags bearing the slogan “We will rise”; others held aloft the flag of Iran and pictures of Khamenei. The Tehran metro was packed as people attempted to join the march. They chanted: “Mourning is mourning today, mourning day is today. Martyr Khamenei is before God today.” At the funeral on Sunday, “Kill Trump” was chalked on the stage by the mourners who throughout the ceremony expressed a desire for revenge and personal grief. Khamenei was killed by Israeli bombs in February in an attempt to destabilise and ultimately topple the government. Late on Monday, Khamenei’s body arrived in Qom, where processions will be held on Tuesday before similar events in Shia cities in Iraq. On Sunday, the entire Iranian leadership, depleted by successive Israeli assassinations, turned out for the morning prayer with the one exception of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late supreme leader and now his appointed successor. Iranian officials said Khamenei’s absence was not due to wounds sustained in Israel’s attack on the presidential building but to concerns for his safety. However, his three grieving brothers attended. In a feat of organisation by the state authorities and the volunteer civic army that fed and housed the mourners, no one was killed – unlike at previous state-linked funerals that rapidly descended into chaos, including that of the previous supreme leader. The Iranian president praised the crowds’ behaviour and expressed hope that the images emerging from Iran would force the west to reflect on its determination to change Iran. Masoud Pezeshkian said: “If I want to say something, only a few Persian speakers will understand it, but the behaviour and presence of the people are understood by the whole world.” Rejecting Trump’s claim that the grief seen at the funeral had been “fake tears”, Pezeshkian said: “This greatness, these tears that flow from the eyes of girls, men, and children, is not something that can be created by order. Tears arise from the pain and sorrow that surges within a person, and the world sees this truth.” More than 300 foreign journalists, in addition to foreign reporters based in Iran, had been granted rare visas to report on the funeral and the display of national cohesion. Pezeshkian, a reformist elected two years ago who has put emphasis on building consensus within Iran’s political elite, said: “I do not accept the interpretation of farewell. It is a covenant for continuing on the path. This is not actually a farewell but rather a pact to continue on the path. “By entering this war, the enemy disrupted the geography of the region, but in fact it strengthened the unity and cohesion among Muslims and even made the people of the world aware of its human rights claims.” The president accused Israel of perpetrating “all the crimes that are taking place in the region … with the support of the United States and European countries”.

Canada to buy 12 hi-tech German submarines after bidding war

Canada has selected a German consortium to build a dozen cutting-edge submarines in one of the country’s largest-ever defence contracts that will further deepen its Nato ties before a crucial summit this week. On Monday the prime minister, Mark Carney, announced the winner of a tightly contested battle for the lucrative government contract to replace its fleet of ageing, secondhand subs, most of which are undergoing maintenance. For months both ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) and the South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean have promised tech-heavy submarines and spillover economic benefits to Canada. The winner, TKMS, is the largest manufacturer of non-nuclear submarines and a key supplier of Nato’s fleet. Canada had previously indicated that both firms’ diesel-electric offerings – the 212CD model sub from TKMS and Hanwha’s KSS-III Batch-II submarine – suited its military needs. The order for 12 submarines marks the first time Canada has bought brand-new vessels. The Royal Canadian Navy now has four submarines that were bought secondhand from Britain in 1998. Of the four Victoria-class subs, three are undergoing maintenance. The new subs will probably be used to help give Canada a stronger foothold in the Arctic. The TKMS vessels are designed to use modern stealth technology to operate in contested areas with minimal detection, and will be able to conduct lengthy surveillance missions in key Arctic routes, including the Northwest Passage. Hanwha’s vessels are substantially larger than the German one, and the company and industry analysts said they would have given Canada a greater ability to deploy powerful weapons and conduct lengthy patrols deep in the ocean. The submarine order itself is estimated to be worth more than US$12bn (£9bn) but the contract also includes roughly half a century of maintenance, meaning the total bill could exceed US$70bn. Canada’s federal government and TKMS will still have to enter into negotiations to finalise the contract, a process that could take years. Carney took a delegation of senior cabinet ministers to visit TKMS’s building facility in Kiel, Germany, last year, and toured a newly built sub at Hanwha’s facility in Geoje, South Korea. Senior officials from both countries also made visits to Canada to sell the broader economic benefits of their respective pitches. German officials made repeated references to a broader compatibility with Nato, and it has been reported that TKMS was hoping to expand the scope of the contract to include possible investments in rare earths, mining, artificial intelligence and battery production for the automotive sector. South Korea is not a Nato member, but Hanwha representatives said the company would use steel from Algoma’s plant in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, to build armoured weaponised military vehicles in Canada. Hanwha also spent millions on a wide-ranging ad campaign, including a voiceover from the prominent Canadian journalist Peter Mansbridge, touting the benefits of its KSS-III. Carney’s Liberal party has committed to dramatically increasing government defence spending, with a pledge to allocate 5% of gross domestic product by 2035. Canada recently announced it hit 2% of GDP, a longstanding target for Nato members. Canada has also suggested it is open to making larger purchases from European contractors, part of a larger push to lessen its reliance on the US. It has already committed to buying 18 American-made Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II jets – a fighter plane long favoured by the Royal Canadian air force for interoperability with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the binational military organisation shared between Canada and the US. Recent political tensions between the two nations, however, have pushed Ottawa to look at other vendors to help modernise its air force. Canada is weighing the purchase of 72 Saab-made Gripen war planes. The Sweden-based company has said that if Canada buys its latest-generation fighter plane, in addition to six GlobalEye surveillance aircraft the country had already agreed to buy, the deal would create up to 12,600 jobs in Canada, marking another immense defence industrial project for the country. On Monday the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte, told reporters that the members of the alliance were about to announce billions in new contracts, calling it the “crucial kit we need to deter and defend”.

Zelenskyy calls for ‘strong decisions’ at Nato summit as Russia kills 21 in overnight strikes on Kyiv – as it happened

We are now closing the blog. Here is your summary of the day so far: At least 22 people were killed and dozens injured in another major Russian attack on Kyiv (17:58), with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging Nato leaders to take “strong decisions” and back Ukrainian air defence units (9:44). His comments come a day before the alliance’s annual summit is set to begin in Ankara, Turkey, with Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte telling the media that it will be all about discussions on defence spending and supporting Ukraine (15:53). On the sidelines of the main summit, Zelenskyy is expected to meet with Donald Trump, with the US president suggesting earlier today that ending the Russian aggression on Ukraine is “much closer than people realise” (16:10). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Middle East crisis: Funeral procession for supreme leader Ali Khamenei begins in Iran – as it happened

Today marked the start of a mass funeral procession for Iran’s former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Millions have assembled in the capital for the six-day, five-city funeral for Khamenei, who was killed in February during the first airstrike when the US and Israel started the current war in the region. Several officials who haven’t been seen since the start of the war have made a rare public appearance for the funeral procession. Former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was seen during the day in what seems to be his first major public appearance since fighting broke out with the US and Israel. The new commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Ahmad Vahidi, attended the funeral as well as the procession, and so did Esmail Qaani, who leads the Guards’ Quds Force which oversee foreign operations. President Donald ⁠Trump ⁠said earlier today that ⁠the United ⁠States will ‌either ‌make a ‌deal with Iran or “finish the ‌job.” He told reporters that he would ⁠rather make a deal. Hamas is dissolving the body that has governed the Gaza strip since 2007 and handing over control to a technocratic committee established by Trump’s Board of Peace. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is a temporary governing body set up under the Board of Peace to oversee civilian affairs. It was launched in January this year, as part of a ceasefire deal made in October 2025. Lebanon’s president has said that Israel’s occupation of the south was preventing the Lebanese army’s deployment to the area, as the two sides prepare to implement a deal involving the deployment and gradual Israeli withdrawal. According to a statement from his office, president Joseph Aoun emphasised the need to pressure Israel to withdraw its forces “because the persistence of the occupation undermines the legitimacy of the [Lebanese] state and prevents the army from deploying and the laying of the foundations for achieving a just and lasting peace”. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday urged the United States not to sell its F-35 fighter jets or components to Turkey, arguing it would “upset the power balance” in the region. US president Donald Trump travels later on Monday to Ankara for a Nato summit, and his visit could be seen by the Turks as an opportunity to secure acquisition of dozens of jet engines and potential readmission to the F-35 fighter jet program, AFP reports. Lebanese state media said an Israeli strike on a car in the country’s south on Monday killed four people, including three women, despite a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said a school principal, her mother, a foreign female domestic worker and a male Syrian worker were killed when “an Israeli drone targeted the car” they were travelling in as they returned from inspecting their family home in Nabatieh al-Fawqa. A British charity is funding a religious school at the heart of expansion plans for the illegal Israeli settlement in the Palestinian city of Hebron. Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron sent nearly £200,000 to the school between 2019 and 2024, the last year for which accounts are publicly available on the website of the Charity Commission, the charity regulator for England and Wales.

Wildfires rage across southern Europe, forcing thousands to flee homes

Wildfires raging across southern Europe have forced thousands to flee their homes and prompted officials to ban spectators from a stage of the Tour de France, amid warnings of “powder keg” conditions after a record-breaking early summer heatwave. Hundreds of firefighters are tackling blazes that have burned through almost 20,000 hectares (49,500 acres) in Portugal, Spain, France and Greece. Strong winds are forecast to fan the flames and temperatures are expected to rise again this week. In the remote foothills of the French Pyrenees near the Spanish border, 700 firefighters were struggling to contain an out-of-control wildfire that has ⁠scorched 5,000 hectares and prompted the evacuation of more than 10,000 people. “This morning, conditions are ⁠deteriorating again,” said the French interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, on Monday, adding that with wildfires now blazing in five departments, twice as much land had burned in France so far this season compared with the same time last year. The EU said on Monday it was sending ⁠four waterbombing aircraft to France from Cyprus and Sweden to help firefighters around the city of Perpignan. “Europe stands with France,” the European Commission president, Ursula ⁠von der Leyen, posted. The Pyrenees fire has nearly tripled in size since Sunday. “It came within 300 metres [984ft] of the houses. We were shocked by how fast it spread, it was staggering – bordering on panic,” Patrice, from the village of Trévillach, told Agence France-Presse. The blazes follow a premature May heatwave and another in June that shattered temperature records across western Europe, caused thousands of excess deaths and left vast areas of land particularly vulnerable to wildfires. Chantal Mauchet, the prefect of the Hérault department, where several fires have burned through at least 300 hectares of land, said on Monday southern France’s wildfire season had “essentially started three or more weeks early”. The World Weather Attribution group of scientists has said the extreme temperatures recorded in June would have been “virtually impossible” without the climate crisis. Temperatures are forecast to climb again this week, rising to 40C locally. “Climate change is here, we are living the consequences and it is only the start of July,” said the fire chief for Pyrénées-Orientales, Eric Belgioino. “This season is going to be a long one for the soldiers fighting fires. You have to help us.” The eastern Pyrenees prefect, Pierre Regnault de la Mothe, ordered Tour de France spectators “not to go near the route or to the finish area” of Monday’s third stage of the cycling race through the Pyrenees from Spain into France. He said it would be “limited to the passage of the riders only and vehicles essential to the race”. On the Spanish side of the border, fire has ravaged 2,200 hectares, 97% of which has been in the protected natural area of Les Gavarres. The head of operations of the Catalan fire service, Eduard Martinez, said the blaze had a perimeter of 40km (25 miles). Firefighters said their efforts would be complicated by rising temperatures and the many “smoking hotspots” within the perimeter, but announced late on Sunday that the blaze was stable and they hoped it would be extinguished ⁠during the week. South of Catalonia, in Spain’s eastern Castellón province, more than 500 people were evacuated after a wildfire spread into the Sierra de Espadán national park. In central Portugal’s Vouzela area, more than 1,200 firefighters supported by nearly 400 vehicles and 15 aircraft were trying to extinguish a blaze that broke out on Thursday and had burned across an area of 13,000 hectares by Sunday. Spain and Italy sent firefighters and aircraft to help and emergency services said on Monday that while dangerous spots remained, 80% of the blaze was under control. Portugal’s interior minister, Luís Neves, described conditions as a “powder keg”. Elsewhere, large fires also destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest, vineyards and scrub on the Croatian island of Hvar and at Tale in Albania, while in Greece, which was largely spared last month’s heatwave, flames set off by a forest fire tore through two factories in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Greek authorities issued evacuation alerts for three suburbs and urged residents in parts of the city to stay indoors and shut their windows and doors because of toxic smoke from one of the factories, a recycling plant. Another large wildfire broke out Sunday afternoon west of Athens, with 210 firefighters, supported by volunteers, specialised teams and 29 aircraft deployed to tackle the blaze burning through pine forest in the Mandra area.