(Reuters) – State-organised rallies were held across Iran on Saturday marking the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy with cries of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” in support of Palestinians under Israeli bombardment in Gaza.
Radical Iranian revolutionary students stormed the embassy soon after the fall of the U.S.-backed Shah 44 years ago, holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
In Tehran, demonstrators marched on Saturday from Palestine Square in the heart of the capital to the former U.S. embassy a few kilometers away.
State television showed demonstrators burning the Israeli flag and carrying pictures of dead Palestinian children from Israeli strikes in Gaza.
The Israeli military has struck Gaza from the air, imposed a siege and launched a ground assault after the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas that rules Gaza killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 others captive in an Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel.
Gaza health officials say more than 9,250 Palestinians have been killed and medical services are collapsing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a halt to fighting unless captives held by Hamas are freed.
(dubai.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
