Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — who has not been seen or heard from publicly since succeeding his slain father following the opening U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran — declared Tuesday that “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” would become the rallying cries of the Muslim world while vowing that the Jewish state was nearing the “final stages” of its existence. In a written message marking the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Khamenei described Israel as a “cancerous tumor,” echoed his father’s prediction that the Jewish state would not survive another 25 years from a decade ago — effectively placing Israel’s destruction within roughly 15 years — and warned that regional nations would no longer serve as “shields” for American military bases.
“‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ shall become the common chants of the Islamic ummah [nation] and the world’s oppressed, especially among the youth,” Khamenei wrote in the statement published by Iranian state-linked outlets and across his official X account, while praising Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed terror groups for what he called victories against the “American-Zionist armies.”
