Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif, the spokesman of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and the director-general of Intifada committee in Tehran, said the rallies which started at 10:00 a.m. local time (0630 GMT) were being held in more than 900 cities across the country.
Other flags belonging to regional resistance groups, including Iraq’s anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units, better known as Hashd al-Sha'abi, Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement and Yemen’s Ansarullah were carried by demonstrators.
The mass rallies are held in many countries in the West Asian region, including Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, as well as many others across the globe.
Senior Iranian officials attended the rally in Tehran, with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf addressing the event.
“Today, the people of Iran have come out across the country in a massive rally to defend Palestine and the Islamic Ummah,” Qalibaf told the crowd.
“The story of Palestine over the past decades and for many years has been a tale full of sorrow not only for the Islamic world but for all humanity and the human community. This story serves as a lesson and a role model.”
Pointing to the Israeli genocide, atrocities and crimes against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, the speaker underlined the West’s duplicity in advocating for human rights.
“These events are a stain on the forehead of Western civilization that will remain as an ignominy forever, and future generations will not turn towards such a culture.”
Qalibaf said Palestine is a touchstone that does not allow seemingly flamboyant slogans and the dual behavior of the West to be promulgated.
"Palestine stands up to a hegemonic system that persists and continues to exist by suppressing the rights and truth.”
Voicing support for the October 7, 2023 retaliatory attack by the Palestinians on Israeli-occupied territories, Qalibaf said Operation al-Aqsa Flood was a “rightful and legitimate action in response to 77 years of oppression by the Zionist regime, the United States, and Britain.”
The Iranian Parliament speaker described Israel as a “spare” regime that has no power or strength within itself without the US.
“The reality is that today the Zionist regime is the killing machine of the hegemonic system and the criminal America.”
In their final communique in the Tehran rally, the demonstrators underscored their unwavering support for Palestinians and their holy cause as they called for the trial of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his regime's genocidal war in Gaza.
“We, the participants at this rally, regard Palestine as the prime issue in the Islamic world… and voice our ironclad support for the liberation of Palestine and call for an urgent action by the international community to stop such inhuman crimes and bring to justice the Zionist regime’s authorities, not least the butcher of Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, in international criminal courts as well as unblocking humanitarian relief aids and the reconstruction of Gaza,” the communique read.
Pointing to the “bureaucratic, political, structural and societal” collapse of the Israeli regime, the demonstrators also warned certain regional states against legalization and normalization of their ties with the occupying entity.
Al-Quds Day, or simply Quds Day, is an annual, international day held every year on the last Friday of Ramadan to express support for Palestine and oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Large rallies are held as Israel continues its attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, established Quds Day in 1979 shortly after the Islamic Revolution in Iran to show solidarity with Palestinians. It has since become a symbol of resistance.