The final stage of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's funeral procession began Thursday with the arrival of his coffin in his hometown of Mashhad, where he is set to be buried later in the day at Imam Reza Shrine. The ceremony comes after a night of US strikes that went beyond the sporadic exchanges of fire seen throughout the ceasefire.
Some 90 additional targets linked to the Iranian threat to the Strait of Hormuz were hit overnight, including air defense systems, radars, missile and drone storage sites and military logistics infrastructure along the coastline. That came in addition to 80 targets struck the previous night. In Jordan, sirens sounded at around 1:45 p.m. over suspected fire toward the country from Iran.
For the first time since the ceasefire was declared in April, targets deep inside Iran were also hit. Iranian media reported strikes on railway bridges between Tehran and Mashhad, halting traffic on the line on the final day of the supreme leader's funeral procession. Iran's Health Ministry said at least 14 people were killed and 78 wounded over the two days of strikes.
A blow to the bridge to China
The Fars news agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, reported that one of the bridges hit, in Golestan province, is part of the China-Turkmenistan-Iran corridor. According to the report, the volume of freight trains from China on that route has tripled since the blockade, and Russia has used the line to ship goods to Iran since the end of last year. The report also said the bridge was hit by cruise missiles, that there were no casualties and that it would be repaired quickly.
Khamenei's funeral procession is set to end Thursday in Mashhad, after beginning in Tehran, passing through the city of Qom and then continuing to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. The coffin landed Thursday morning at Mashhad airport, and a procession is expected to take place in the city before the burial at the shrine. One of the central questions is whether his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, will appear publicly at the ceremonies.
Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Mojtaba had asked to attend the final ceremony in Mashhad, but security officials rejected the request due to fears that he could be harmed or tracked by Israel.
یک بار دیگر فیلم حملهور شدن اوباش انقلابی به وزیرخارجه جمهوری اسلامی ایران را ببینید،
سنگی که به طرف ایشان پرت شد میتوانست باعث شهادت ایشان شود،
این دیگر فقط توهین و فحاشی نیست،
یک عملیات تروریستی است.منتظر شناسایی و برخورد جدی قوه قضائیه با این تروریستها هستیم. pic.twitter.com/HZ7mWLVP2J
— مش ممد🥷🏼 (@mhmdhsyn__) July 7, 2026
At the same time, it should be noted that according to numerous reports, he was injured in the strike that killed his father and underwent plastic surgery afterward. The continued public absence of Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader, is creating a vacuum in the Iranian leadership.
The pragmatic faction at the top of the regime, which pushed for the ceasefire agreement with the US and includes President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has found itself in recent weeks under growing attack from hardliners pushing to continue the confrontation.
Khamenei's funeral brought the tension into the street. According to The New York Times, at the funeral in Tehran, a crowd of extremists tried to bring down Pezeshkian with shouts of "Death to the appeaser," while Araghchi was attacked with stones and chased into an alley.
Following the attacks, government officials and their supporters called for the extremists to be arrested and put on trial by the judiciary.
The president's son and adviser, Yousef Pezeshkian, defended his father's policy of engagement with the US on social media and condemned the attackers. "If this anger is directed against our own senior officials and harms internal unity and broader Islamic unity, it means it has become a tool in the hands of the enemy," he wrote.
At the same time, Pezeshkian himself attacked the US on Wednesday, claiming Washington "bullies its rivals, creates obstacles and deceives," while Mehdi Tabatabaei, deputy communications chief in his office, asked on social media, in what appeared to be a reference to Trump: "What do you do when someone does not stand by his word or his signature?"
Also according to The New York Times, government officials and senior Iranian figures familiar with the internal discussions said there was "chaos" within the leadership and that no decision had yet been made on whether to continue the military confrontation or return to the diplomatic track.
Nightly exchanges of blows
The overnight strikes took place along the coastal strip, in Bushehr and in the port cities of Chabahar, Bandar Abbas and Sirik. One piece of footage showed a maritime control tower hit in Chabahar, while CENTCOM released black-and-white footage of a strike on a runway and missile launchers.
Iran attacked Gulf states throughout the night. According to the Iranian military, drones were launched toward a Patriot battery in Kuwait, US fuel depots in Bahrain and early warning sites in Qatar, which is mediating between Washington and Tehran in the negotiations.
In Bahrain, where the US Fifth Fleet headquarters is located, sirens sounded three times. In Kuwait, authorities said air defenses had operated against a "hostile missile and drone threat." In Qatar, residents received an alert that the threat level had been raised for the first time since the ceasefire in April.
Throughout the day, the US president raised the level of his threats, saying that as far as he was concerned, the ceasefire with Iran was "over." A senior US official told Axios, "We will hit them a little so they understand we are not joking," adding that the duration of the escalation, whether a few days or a month, depended only on whether Iran continued to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One overnight, Trump said, "They want to make a deal so badly. They called a short time ago," adding, "I just don't know if they deserve to make a deal. I don't know if they will honor the deal … They have gotten a little out of control."
