Hundreds of thousands of people chanted “Death to Israel” on Sunday at rallies in Iran to mark the 45th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, with some burning American and Israeli flags, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, an organization backed by Tehran. Reuters reports.

In a televised speech, President Ibrahim Raisi accused the United States and some Western countries, Tehran’s mortal enemy, of supporting “crimes against humanity committed by the Zionist regime (Israel) in Gaza.”

State television said millions attended the rallies and showed large crowds chanting “Death to Israel, death to America!”, a common practice at state-sponsored rallies marking the anniversary of the 1979 revolution that ousted the US-backed monarch.

Soldiers, students, clergy and senior political and military officials were among the participants of Sunday’s revolution anniversary march. Women in black with young children were among those who took to the streets across the country, many carrying portraits of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Support for the Palestinian cause has been a mainstay of the Islamic Republic since the revolution that toppled the US-backed shah, as the Shiite-dominated country sought to present itself as the leader of the Muslim world.

Hamas is part of the Iranian-backed Axis of Resistance, a regional alliance that includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, Shiite militias in Iraq and Houthi forces that control much of Yemen.

Iran, which maintains that all members of the alliance make their own decisions, has repeatedly said that Tehran will not directly intervene in hostilities related to Gaza unless it is attacked by Israel or the United States.