Photos: Iran marks US embassy takeover with rallies against US, Israel

What the report says

Iran marked the 47th anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran with large rallies on Wednesday, according to Al Jazeera’s photo report. Demonstrators gathered in central Tehran, where they burned U.S. and Israeli flags, waved banners, and chanted slogans hostile to Washington and Tel Aviv. The annual commemoration recalls the seizure of the embassy by Iranian students in 1979, when 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days, a crisis that severed formal ties between Iran and the United States.

Officials used the occasion to present the protests as evidence of defiance against the United States and Israel. Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani told the crowd that the two countries had suffered a decisive setback, while Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, posted remarks online saying U.S. President Donald Trump had failed in both war and politics. The event also featured placards and caricatures targeting Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Al Jazeera reported that this year’s anniversary came amid heightened regional tension after a war launched by the U.S. and Israel against Iran on February 28, which the article says killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The rallies also followed the U.S. midterm elections, which Iranian officials cited in their commentary as proof of American weakness. The broader context is the long-running hostility between Iran and the U.S., which has persisted since 1979.