Among the most recently commemorated at the ceremony were IRGC generals Mohammad Hossein Afshardi and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, both killed in Israeli air raids in Syria earlier this summer. Their images loomed large on digital screens inside the mosque alongside other key figures, including Qasem Soleimani, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam. The walls were also draped with banners reading slogans such as “They live with God” and “The martyrs of authority do not die in vain.”
The ceremony began with a moving eulogy by the renowned religious orator Haj Mahmoud Karimi, who chanted poetic lamentations mixed with epic verses, recounting the courage and piety of the fallen. The crowd responded emotionally—many wept, others beat their chests in rhythm with the chants, while elderly mothers of martyrs sat quietly, clutching framed photographs of their lost sons.
President Pezhakian’s Speech: A Call for Unity, Resistance, and Reform
President Masoud Pezhakian, now over a year into his tenure as president, delivered a keynote address that straddled the lines between spiritual reverence and political messaging. Standing behind a podium decorated with white lilies and the national emblem, he began by invoking the memory of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and declared:
