For four months, Iran feared it was too dangerous to lay to rest Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader who was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the joint U.S.-Israeli war.

Now, shielded by a tentative truce — and perhaps by an America distracted by its 250th July Fourth celebration — millions of Iranians are expected to mourn over several days of funeral rites that will stretch across five cities and into neighboring Iraq.