The ceremony, held every first Friday on the Islamic calendar, in which mothers hold their young children in their arms, offering them as martyrs for Iran, was captured by a CNN report.

It is a ceremony that began after the historic battle in Karbala when then-Imam Hussein raised his own child in his hands asking the enemies besieging the city to give him water. But instead, the besiegers killed Imam Hussein’s child.

“There is nothing more heroic in Iran than dying as a martyr,” the CNN reporter notes, noting that this has taken on greater significance after the recent 12-day war and the U.S. bombing of Iranian facilities.

“We want to show them that we are not afraid of anything and we will continue to support our state until they are destroyed,” says an Iranian woman holding her child in her arms. “For us, Imam Hussein is everything and we should sacrifice our lives for him.”

According to the US network, the assembled women chanted “death to the US, death to Israel” during the ceremony while images of Iran’s nuclear program were shown.