Mourners filed through Damascus on Friday, a day after an explosive device set off in a cafe in the Syrian capital killed nine people.

The funeral procession in the normally bustling Midan neighborhood carried the coffins of three of the blast victims. Another 20 were wounded in the explosion at a popular cafe near the capital's main judicial complex, which was often frequented by lawyers.

Iran prepared Friday for the dayslong funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with banners across Tehran urging the public to rise up in support of the Islamic Republic after the devastating war that killed the 86-year-old cleric.

The country's theocracy plans to see millions flood the streets of the capital beginning Saturday in scenes reminiscent to the burial of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.

Months after the killing of Iran's supreme leader at the start of its war with the United States and Israel, mourners will hold a dayslong funeral and burial for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The mourning period will see Khamenei's body carried through cities in both Iran and neighboring Iraq. Iran's theocracy likely will encourage the public, government employees and paramilitary forces to fill the streets in his honor.

A bomb went off at a cafe in central Damascus on Thursday, killing at least five people and wounding 16, Syrian authorities said.

The blast took place near the capital's Palace of Justice, a key government building, sparking scenes of panic in the busy area.

Iran's joint military command warned Thursday that all oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz must use its approved routes or face a "forceful response," again ratcheting up tensions over a waterway crucial for international energy supplies.

The strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, has emerged as one of the top issues in negotiations to reach a permanent end to the Iran war. The statement from the Khatam al-Anbiya military command, reported by Iranian state television, comes after both U.S. and Iranian diplomats met with mediators on Wednesday in Qatar.

It was the deadliest reported strike in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Most of the victims were children.

In almost any other conflict, these haunting truths would be seared into national memory. Yet more than 120 days since at least one U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school, there remains no final accounting of what happened.

Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf called on Thursday for massive turnout at Ali Khamenei's funeral to avenge the supreme leader's death in U.S.-Israeli strikes at the start of the war.

"I invite all the Iranian people... to write a glorious page in the history of Islamic Iran through your presence" at the funeral ceremonies starting Saturday, Ghalibaf said in a statement, adding: "The nation's call for vengeance must ring in the ears of the whole world."

U.S. and Iranian negotiators met separately on Wednesday with Qatari and Pakistani mediators, with "positive progress made," and they agreed to continue discussions, host Qatar said.

The next meeting will be scheduled "at the earliest possible time" after the funeral of Iran's previous supreme leader, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar's Foreign Ministry, said on X. The funeral is set to start Saturday in Tehran.

It's the 1,000th day of war since a Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Other conflicts have emerged in the region, and fragile ceasefires show scars of persistent attacks. Both Israelis and Palestinians are weary of the strain.

The fate of over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, largely displaced and living amid ruins, remains uncertain. Israeli forces controlled over half of the territory under the ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 10, but Israel's government has expanded that and says it aims to hold 70%.

A ceasefire sounds straightforward: Fighting stops. Negotiations ensue. Ordinary citizens get a break from fighting — and some time to rebuild.

That's not what's happening in the volatile Mideast, where ongoing fighting still resembles a war long after ceasefire agreements were announced and President Donald Trump declared victory.