• Iran’s attack came in retaliation for an April 1 strike on the consular annexe of Iran’s embassy in Damascus and killed 7 Revolutionary Guards, 2 of them generals

• The attack come against the backdrop of the Gaza war, which began with Hamas’s attack on Israel. Tehran backs Hamas but denies involvement in its attack on Israel ⠀

Thousands of Iranians took to the streets of Iran early on Sunday in a show of support for the unprecedented drone and missile attack under way against arch foe Israel.

“Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” chanted demonstrators in Tehran’s Palestine Square shortly after the Revolutionary Guards announced the launch of Operation Honest Promise. ⠀

Iranian media described the attack on Israel as “complex” as it also involved Iranian allies in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.

“This attack did not come from Iran only, and this regime [Israel] is being punished from four directions,” the Tasnim news agency said. ⠀

A large crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the British embassy in Tehran.

Supporters of the retaliatory attack also demonstrated in Iran’s third-largest city Isfahan where Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, one of the generals killed in the Damascus strike, is buried.

Demonstrators also gathered near the grave in the southern city of Kerman of prominent Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a 2020 US drone strike in Baghdad.

Tehran had earlier appealed to Washington to keep out of its conflict with Israel, but Iranian hopes were dashed after a Pentagon official confirmed that US forces were shooting down Israel-bound drones.

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