Posts on Facebook and messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, featured a photo of the black flag atop the shrine’s dome. Many wrote that the black flag was raised over the shrine for the “first time in history”. However, the Imam Reza shrine has raised the black flag before and routinely does so as a sign of mourning. “The shrine in Mashhad also does it more generally to mark mourning.”Reuters contacted the Imam Reza Holy Shrine for comment. The Imam Reza Holy Shrine said it raised a black flag on Oct. 18, 2023 to mourn deaths in the Gaza hospital strike.

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Persons: Reza Holy, …, Israel ”, Reza, Imam Hussein, Prophet Mohammad, Imam Ali, ”, Sajjad Rizvi, Imam Reza Holy Shrine, Read Organizations: Facebook, Islamic Republic News Agency, University of Exeter’s Institute of Arab, Islamic, ” Reuters, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Mashhad, Iran, Gaza, U.S, Islam