Iranians on Tuesday held a funeral in Tehran for two Iranian military air defense personnel who were killed by Israeli strikes earlier this week as the region remains on the brink of full-scale war.
Iran’s PressTV identified the slain Iranian soldiers as Bahman Hosseini and Alireza Abiri and said that the funeral ceremony was held in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
Initial reports said that at least 15 people were wounded by the Israeli attacks on Iran, which were part of the first exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran since a Pakistani-brokered ceasefire was reached in early April. The escalation began with Israel bombing Beirut’s southern suburbs, and Iran followed through on its vow to strike northern Israel in response to Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital.
After Iranian strikes hit northern Israel, the Israeli military then carried out strikes targeting Iran. According to the media narrative put out by US and Israeli officials, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to launch a more limited attack at the behest of President Trump, who initially said that he would tell the Israeli leader not to strike Iran at all.
While the Trump administration had tried to distance itself from the Israeli strikes on Beirut, US officials have said that the US was notified ahead of time and that the US attempted to intercept Iranian missiles during the attack that was provoked by the strikes on Lebanon’s capital.
