Three of Khamenei’s Sons Join Top Leaders at Tehran Funeral, but Not His Successor Mojtaba

Iran’s top officials and the brothers of the country’s new supreme leader emerged into public view on Sunday, July 5, to attend funeral prayers for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, even as calls grew from the crowd for the killing of US President Donald Trump. Their appearance before hundreds of thousands in Tehran would have been unthinkable during the war, which opened on February 28, 2026, with Israeli and American airstrikes that killed the 86-year-old Khamenei along with family members and other officials. Israel had tracked and targeted regime figures who dared to surface publicly during the fighting.

Conspicuously absent was Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who is believed to be in hiding after being wounded in the strike that killed his father, his face disfigured and one or both legs badly injured. Israel has warned that it is prepared to kill him as well, as he now leads a theocracy negotiating with Washington over a permanent end to the war and over Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz. Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani led the prayers, with Khamenei’s sons Masoud, Meysam, and Mostafa appearing alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Quds Force chief Esmail Qaani.

Posters and graffiti at the Grand Mosalla called for the killing of Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a poet leading the crowd drew chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Authorities planned to parade the caskets through Tehran and other cities before burying Khamenei in Mashhad, with the mourning set to run through Thursday, July 9. For now, talks with the United States on a permanent end to the war remain on hold until the funeral concludes.

(TOI/VFI News)

Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have brought low those who plotted the destruction of Israel, and we ask that You continue to expose and dismantle every scheme of the Iranian regime against Your people and against the nations. We pray for the protection of all whom the enemy has threatened, and we ask that You frustrate every call for violence and revenge. Soften the hearts of the Iranian people, that many would turn from this darkness and come to know You. In Yeshua’s Name we pray.