Iranians mourn commander killed in Israeli strike

 TEHRAN: Thousands massed on Thursday in the Iranian capital for the memorial service of senior Progressive Watchmen authority Razi Moussavi, three days after he was killed in what Tehran says was an Israeli strike.

The group in Tehran's focal Imam Hossein square recited "Passing to Israel" and "Demise to America". Many waved yellow banners engraved with the message "I'm your rival" — a reference to Israel — in both Persian and Hebrew.

Israel has long battled a shadow battle of deaths and harm against curve enemy Iran and its partners, yet Moussavi's killing in Syria came during a period of pointedly uplifted local pressure over the Israeli hostility against Gaza.

The revered Qasem Soleimani, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' foreign operations arm who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020, was also among the mourners in Tehran who carried pictures of Moussavi.

Iran one week from now will stamp the fourth commemoration of the passing of Soleimani, who had run the IRGC's Quds Power for over 10 years. Iranian state media says an Israeli rocket strike on Monday close to the Syrian

capital Damascus killed Moussavi, a Quds Power general and the most senior Watchmen commandant killed since Soleimani. The Israeli armed force, which has sent off many strikes on Iran-connected focuses in war-torn Syria lately, said just that it doesn't remark on unfamiliar media reports.

According to the official news agency SANA, Syria claimed on Thursday that Moussavi's "martyrdom" on its territory was a component of Israel's "aggressive policies." In letters sent by the Syrian unfamiliar service, Damascus approached the Assembled Countries to act against Israeli activities which may "light the locale", SANA said.