TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Millions of people took to the streets across Iran and other countries on Friday to show their solidarity with the Palestinians and condemn Israel’s decades-long occupation and atrocities.
In Tehran and other Iranian cities, protesters chanted "Death to Israel" as the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) displayed its ballistic missiles, including the type used this week to hit Daesh bases in Syria.
Marchers in Tehran headed from various points of the city toward the Friday prayer ceremony at Tehran University campus grounds. Protesters burned the Zionist and the American flags, as well as effigies of Israeli leaders.
President Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian officials, including Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, attended the demonstration.  
The anti-Zionist rallies are an annual event marking Quds Day. Iranians and other Muslims see it as an occasion to express support for the Palestinians and emphasize the importance of Jerusalem Al-Quds for Islam.
Rouhani told reporters that the rally was also Iran's response to the U.S. violations of the "rights of people" of Iran after the Senate last week approved new sanctions on Tehran over its missile program, something Congress is expected to decide on soon.
"With this rally our nation is telling America that we are determined to continue our path," he said.
Rouhani, in remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency, also said the occupying regime of Israel supports "terrorists in the region."
"The message of Quds Day is that of hatred towards the occupying and usurping regime as well as support for the oppressed nation” of Palestine, he said.
Larijani, in a speech to Tehran demonstrators, called Israel the "mother of terrorism" and said that in the "20th century, there was no event more ominous than establishing the Zionist regime."
The rallies this year coincided with reports about increased contacts between Saudi Arabia and Zionist leaders to forge a channel of relations.
On Thursday, senior Israeli ministers called on Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to establish full diplomatic relations with the occupying regime. Speaking at the Herzliya conference, Zionist intelligence minister Yisrael Katz asked King Salman to invite PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Riyadh and to send newly appointed Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman to Tel Aviv in return.
A communiqué issued at the end of the rallies in Tehran said the U.S., Israel and the region’s reactionary regimes are supporting Takfiri groups, including Daesh, in an attempt to create a rift among Muslims and protect Tel Aviv.
The statement renewed the call for the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation as an ideal of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
It also vowed support for the "path of resistance and intifada” against the Tel Aviv regime, stressing the need for strong unity among different Palestinian factions to speed up anti-Israel struggles.
The only solution to the Palestinian issue, the communiqué said, is facilitating the return of displaced Palestinians to their homeland and holding free elections for the nation to decide its fate.
It also slammed Israel’s "attempts to Judaize the occupied territories and destroy Palestine’s national and historical identity, calling on international institutions to help foil the regime’s plots by taking firm and practical measures.”
The rally also inaugurated a huge digital countdown display at Tehran Palestine Square, showing that the Zionist regime will cease to exist in 8,411 days.
In 2015, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei predicted that after 25 years — by 2040 — there will no longer be a State of Israel.
Meanwhile, the IRGC used the demonstration on Friday to showcase three surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, including the Zolfaqar — the type that Iran used this week to hit Daesh in Syria. The Guard said it fired six such missiles on Sunday at Daesh bases targets in the city of Dayr al-Zawr, more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) away.
Another missile on display at the Tehran rally was the Qadr, with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) that can reach both Zionist and U.S. bases in the region.
Muslims hold Quds Day rallies held each year on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to end this weekend. Iran has marked the day, declared by the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini, since the start of its 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the country cut relations with Israel.
Outside Iran, people in Bahrain held rallies in different areas to commemorate Quds day and pledged unwavering support for the Palestinian cause.
In eastern Saudi Arabia, people braved a military siege on the Shia town of Awamiyah in the Qatif region and held a rally in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians.
Similar rallies were reported in other countries, including the UK, India, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and many other countries.