TEHRAN – She was a middle-aged woman residing in Tehran. For the past two weeks, she had been taking part in every demonstration held in the capital. On Friday, attending the mass rallies marking the international Quds Day was a no-brainer, one of the individuals accompanying her told an Iranian reporter, as she lay on the ground in her blood.

The woman lost her life during one of multiple bombings carried out in central Tehran by the U.S. and Israel, as around three million Tehrani residents, according to unofficial estimates, marched through the capital’s streets. The woman’s identity was still unknown to the Iranian public at the time of writing this report. But everyone had seen the flag she had been holding, drenched in blood, raised by another demonstrator and presented to the crowd after her death. A picture of the woman on the ground, with a man—probably her husband—crouching down and hugging her lifeless body also circulated around the Internet.

This harrowing account of a U.S.-Israeli crime, however, did not make the Iranian people want to leave the streets that day and take shelter in their homes, which have also been coming under attack by the U.S. and Israel since February 28, the day the two regimes assassinated Iran’s Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. Now that his son, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, has been elected to continue his mission, people say they will march in the streets and chant slogans against America for as long as their Leader needs them to.

In his debut address to the Iranian nation on Thursday, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei asked people to mark the international Quds Day as they do every year, show their support for the Palestinian cause, and, given the current circumstances, for their Armed Forces, who have exceeded all expectations and continue to successfully pummel U.S. bases in the region, pound Israeli positions in the occupied territories, and keep the Strait of Hormuz closed.

“I am here with my entire family,” said a young woman in Tehran, pointing behind her to an elderly couple who were her parents, and next to her to a young man—her husband—holding their toddler son. “The Americans need to understand that we will not give up. Independence and dignity are the utmost values for Iranians. You attacked us after listening to a bunch of traitors in the West who called for bombs on their own homeland, and you thought you would see the same here inside Iran. But you were never more wrong,” she said. When asked if she was afraid of dying in the bombardment that was continuing as people moved through the streets, she said that she was “going to die one day anyway. Dying for the homeland would be an honor.”

Crowds were also massive in hundreds of cities across Iran. From Tabriz in northwestern Iran to Bandar Abbas in the south, from the northern city of Rasht to the eastern city of Zahedan, Iranians waved their national flags, held up pictures of their martyred Leader and their new Leader, and shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater).

This massive public turnout was probably not the only thing that disappointed U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who reports say believed that by assassinating Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic would collapse within 48 hours and its military would be unable to respond due to a lack of leadership. The remaining Iranian leaders—many of whom Hebrew media have announced to be on the U.S.-Israeli assassination list—also attended the rallies alongside their people and under bombardment. President Masoud Pezeshkian walked Tehran’s sidewalks unfettered, shook hands with people, took selfies with them, and promised to resist. Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Eje’i chanted even more loudly as the enemy bombed a site in close proximity to him. Iran’s culture minister and Tehran’s mayor, two politicians from opposite sides of the political spectrum, walked together and raised their fists as smoke billowed behind them. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told foreign reporters that the U.S. would eventually have to accept the determination and resolve of the Iranian people, and Security Chief Ali Larijani said the enemy has yet to truly get to know the Iranian nation. The large presence of Iranian officials came after the American war secretary claimed they had gone underground and were in hiding. He might have mistaken Iranian authorities for their counterparts in Israel.

As Iranian citizens marched through the streets, the Iranian Armed Forces were preparing to carry out their 45th wave of missile and drone attacks against U.S.-Israeli targets. That wave came later in the evening. The message so far is clear: Iranians would rather die than give in to a bully who has so far proven to be brutal but cowardly, unprepared, and delusional.