Thousands of mourners gathered in Iran's capital for the funeral service of assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The ceremony at Tehran University began on Thursday morning with Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, offering prayers over the coffin.
State television footage showed the casket being transported by truck through the city streets towards Azadi Square, with mourners lining the route to throw flowers.
Haniyeh's body is due to be flown to Doha, Qatar, where he had resided since approximately 2017. He will be laid to rest in the Lusail district of the Qatari capital.
Haniyeh, 62, was killed with a guided missile in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack that risks sparking an all-out regional war.
Experts say he was the fourth hit on an Israeli “kill list” of Hamas leaders drawn up after October 7, with only two still alive.
Only 12 hours earlier, Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr, the military leader of Hezbollah and another Iranian proxy, after 12 Israeli Druze children were killed in a rocket attack last weekend.
The Middle East is already dangerously unstable due to the war in Gaza - where nearly 40,000 have died - but now it risks spreading into a regional conflagration.
Haniyeh had been visiting Tehran for the inauguration of president Masoud Pezeshkian on the day before his death and joined in chants of: “Death to Israel, death to America.”
The Iranian regime is reportedly in shock over the strike in the heart of its own territory.
Ismail Khatib, Tehran's minister of intelligence, recently claimed to have “dismantled [the Israeli secret service] Mossad's infiltration network”, calling it a “turning point” for the ministry.
There are fears that Iran could use proxies to hit Israeli embassies abroad. In Britain, the Community Security Trust urged members of the Jewish community to “keep gates and doors closed at all times” and avoid “congregating outside communal buildings and events”.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not confirmed the strike, with the Israel Defence Forces saying it is conducting a “situation assessment”, but vowed his country was “prepared for all scenarios”.
