Iran has announced a six-day series of funeral ceremonies for Ali Khamenei, the country's Supreme Leader for nearly 37 years, who was killed on February 28, 2026, in the opening hours of a joint U.S.-Israeli military strike on Iran. The ceremonies will begin on July 4 in Tehran and conclude with his burial on July 9 in Mashhad, the northeastern holy city where he was born.

According to the committee overseeing the commemorations, Khamenei's body will lie in state at the Tehran Mosalla on July 4 and 5, followed by a funeral procession through the capital on July 6. A ceremony will then be held in Qom — one of Shia Islam's most significant religious centres — on July 7, before the cortège moves to Mashhad, where he will be interred at the shrine of the eighth Shia imam. Authorities expect several million people to attend, with officials noting that mourners from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and other regional countries have expressed their intention to travel to Iran for the events. The symbolic timing of the opening ceremony on July 4 — the 250th anniversary of American Independence Day — has not gone unnoticed.

The delay of more than four months between Khamenei's death and his burial has prompted considerable public questioning. Officials of the Islamic Republic offered little explanation during this period, drawing mockery from critics on social media. While the initial postponement in the chaotic early days of the war appeared understandable, security concerns are widely believed to have driven the extended delay. Organising mass gatherings of this scale carries inherent risks: the 2020 funeral of Qasem Soleimani, the late commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was marred by a crowd crush that killed at least 56 people. Some Iraqi officials had even proposed that Khamenei's body be taken to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala before being returned to Iran for burial.

Khamenei, who had held supreme authority in Iran since 1989, held the final say on all major policy decisions and served as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, including the Revolutionary Guard. His death made him the first sitting head of state to be killed in an operation publicly acknowledged by Washington. He was succeeded in early March by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei — the third Supreme Leader since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Mojtaba, reported to have been wounded in the same strikes that killed his father, has not appeared in public since his appointment and has communicated only through written statements. Whether he will attend the ceremonies for his father and predecessor remains uncertain.

The funeral announcement comes at a moment when Iran and the United States are reported to be moving closer to a deal to end the broader regional conflict, lending the ceremonies added geopolitical weight as Iran navigates a critical transition in leadership.