Iranian authorities are expecting huge crowds of people, reaching 20 million people, at the mourning ceremonies and funeral of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in late February, DPA reported, citing the Iranian Mehr news agency, BTA reports.
The ceremonies will begin on July 4 in Tehran and the pilgrimage city of Qom. The funeral will take place on July 9 in Khamenei's hometown of Mashhad, in the northeast of the country.
With temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius, authorities are working with police and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to ensure the smooth running of the event, Mehr news agency reported.
A ceremony is also planned at the shrine of the third Shiite Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq. However, this has not yet been confirmed.
According to reports, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi officials on the matter.
The 86-year-old Khamenei was killed at his official residence in Tehran during the first wave of Israeli and American attacks on February 28, 2026.
His funeral was originally scheduled for much earlier but was postponed several times for security reasons, partly because it would have involved the entire political leadership.
A total of five official holidays have been declared in Tehran, Qom and Mashhad since his assassination.
It is unclear whether his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who was seriously injured in the same attack, will attend. He was appointed Iran's new supreme leader a week after his father's death. However, he has not appeared in public since then, which has sparked speculation about his health and even that he has died, but his death is being kept secret.