Black flag over Iranian shrine misrepresented amid Israel-Hamas conflict

"The Black Flag has been raised over Razavi Shrine in Mashhad, Khorasan province, Iran. This is a call for war or vengeance," says Jackson Hinkle, an American political commentator, in an October 17, 2023 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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Screenshot of an X post taken October 23, 2023

The earliest iteration of the image AFP found online was published in another October 17 post in Arabic. Similar posts circulated elsewhere on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok -- including in French and Spanish -- with some suggesting it was the first time the flag appeared atop the shrine.

The claim spread after Hamas militants stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7 and killed at least 1,400 people -- mostly civilians who were shot, mutilated or burned to death on the first day of the raid, according to Israeli officials. The country says around 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed in clashes before its army regained control of the area under attack.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said October 23 that more than 5,000 people had been killed in the besieged Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its withering bombing campaign in response to the assault -- the worst in the country's history.

The Arab world has been united in condemnation of Israel since a deadly strike hit a Gaza hospital compound on October 17. Both sides in the war have traded blame for the carnage, but neither the origin of the blast nor the death toll could immediately be independently verified.

Iran supports Hamas, but the country has not declared war on Israel -- and the Imam Reza shrine routinely raises a black flag during times of loss.

After the blast at northern Gaza's Ahli Arab hospital, Iran's Tasnim News Agency said on X that a black flag was flown above the mosque's central dome in response to the strike (archived here).

In a separate report (archived here), the agency said the Iranian government declared October 18 a day of public mourning for what it described as a "massacre and war crime against humanity."

"Factually, the black pennant is not a declaration of war -- it is a sign of mourning," Pierre Pahlavi, deputy director of the Department of Defence Studies at the Canadian Forces College, told AFP on October 17.

"It is normally hoisted every year on the mast of the Imam Reza Mosque during Ashura (a religious event in Islam) and especially in the context of Muharram, a month of mourning, a key moment for the founding of the Shiite branch of the Islamic religion."

Thierry Coville, a researcher at France's Research Centre for International and Strategic Studies, told AFP on October 19 that the black flag is usually "hoisted in mosques and waved in processions during the Muharram ceremony, which in Iran commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein."

The Iranian press has regularly reported on the tradition (archived here) -- and Google Maps images show the black flag perched on the Imam Reza dome (archived here).

"There is not an institutional process that is triggered by the raising of this flag," said Pahlavi, an Iran foreign policy specialist.

The country is a longtime Hamas supporter and has repeatedly warned that a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip may lead to retaliation on other fronts, raising fears of a regional conflagration.

"Iranian officials commend Hamas's action while saying that they did not participate in this attack," Coville said.

More of AFP's reporting on misinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict is available here.