The Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the hajj pilgrimage, has become another opportunity for regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia to continue their propaganda wars against one another.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a conservative cleric and interim Friday prayer leader, used Eid al-Adha to criticize Saudi Arabia over the Mina stampede during the 2015 hajj that killed over 2,000 people, including 472 Iranians. "When I was heading to prayers last year during Eid al-Adha, I was told about the tragedy at Mina,” Khatami recounted.

Blaming Saudi Arabia for not reaching the pilgrims sooner, many of whom died of thirst, Khatami said, “At the very least the issue is that they were at fault. With cameras they could see that Muslims had fallen to the ground, and delivering water by helicopter or other means could have saved half of the lives. They did not give permission to the Iranian Red Crescent and their officials did nothing; this means it’s a crime. The criminals must be sentenced and punished in an Islamic court.”

He added, “Rather than addressing the wounded, they put them in containers with the dead, martyring them alive.”