At rally marking 1979 embassy siege, Revolutionary Guard chief says Israel, US ‘cannot survive by killing Muslims’

Iranian demonstrators gather outside the former US embassy in Tehran to mark the anniversary of the 1979 hostage crisis that has for decades shaped relations between Washington and Tehran.

“Death to Israel, Death to America!” chant crowds of Iranians outside the building, which is currently a museum known as the “Den of Spies,” and covered with striking anti-American murals.

Others burnt the Israeli and US flags.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Hossein Salami criticizes Israel and the United States, saying they “cannot survive by slaughtering and killing Muslims.”

“We always warn them that if they don’t change their behavior, they will go towards collapse and destruction,” he says during a speech at the Tehran rally.

Iranians have held the rallies annually since 1979.

The hostage crisis began in November 1979 following the Islamic Revolution led by Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that ousted the Western-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

Students loyal to Khomeini stormed the embassy building and held 52 staff hostage for 444 days while demanding that Washington hand over Iran’s recently toppled shah, who was being treated in the United States for cancer.

Washington officially broke off relations with Tehran in 1980, midway through the crisis, and they have been frozen ever since.