Iranian leaders vow revenge as Trump, Netanyahu face death threats

Funeral chants calling for Donald Trump’s death and a hard-line newspaper’s revenge list have pushed the Iran crisis beyond rhetoric, but the sharper question is whether Tehran is preparing action or staging a familiar show of defiance under military pressure. The most immediate risk is not just to U.S. leaders named in the threats, but to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, to American forces in the region and to the interim deal meant to keep the war from widening.

At Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral in Tehran, mourners held posters and banners calling for Trump to be killed, while other slogans singled out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Khamenei, who was 86, was buried in Mashhad after being killed on Feb. 28 in U.S.-Israeli strikes that opened the war.

Mojtaba Khamenei, identified in recent reporting as Iran’s new supreme leader, deepened the threat by saying Iranians would avenge his father’s killing. State television carried his statement, which cast revenge as a national obligation, and Trump responded with threats of more missile attacks, saying the U.S. military could “completely decimate and destroy” areas of Iran if Tehran moved against him.

The rhetoric did not stop at the funeral grounds. Hamshahri, a conservative newspaper owned by Tehran Municipality, published an online infographic naming Trump, Netanyahu and other foreign leaders, including European officials, as revenge targets. That public list shows how quickly the threats have been institutionalized inside Iran’s hard-line media ecosystem, even as Abbas Araghchi met in Oman to discuss safe passage for ships through the Strait of Hormuz and mediators tried to keep a crumbling interim deal alive.