The death toll in the crush at the annual Haj pilgrimage outside the holy city of Makkah rose to 769.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday in a statement on his Website, “The Saudis should accept the responsibility and apologize to the Muslims and the victims’ families….”

“The Islamic World has a lot of questions”, Khamenei added.

Iran has repeatedly voiced outrage at the deaths of 131 of its nationals at the world’s largest annual gathering of people.

About 136 Iranians are believed to be killed in the haj stampede while 300 others are still missing. “This is not incompetence, it’s a crime”.

On Saturday, Tehran had summoned Saudi Arabia’s charge d’affaires for the third time since the stampede, to press the kingdom for greater cooperation.

India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted that Saudi authorities have released photos of pilgrims who died in Thursday’s stampede.

The haj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it is expected to perform it at least once in a lifetime.

The fact that he used a United Nations summit meeting on global development goals to reiterate Iran’s outrage over the tragedy has been seen as a sign that Tehran does not intend to tone down the criticism of its regional rival.

The incident came almost two weeks after tens of Hajj pilgrims were killed in another tragic incident in Mecca. They also stood in prayer.

Many more patrolled the network of roads leading to the structure, which resembles a parking garage.

The Iranian pilgrims were scheduled to leave Jamarat hours after the accident took place, the official said.

A Saudi doctor at a hospital near Mecca said he suspected more than 1,000 had died, but cautioned this was only a personal impression. “People were stepped on by people”.

Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said that the fatigue of pilgrims, and high temperatures – soaring above 43 degrees Celsius, or 110 degrees Fahrenheit – might have also played a role in the stampede, according to the AP.

The results of the investigation will take a while, but preliminary information points to pilgrims themselves, as having failed to observe the rules set by the security personnel.

Saudi Prince Khaled al-Faisal earlier sparked controversy by blaming pilgrims with African nationalities for Thursday’s deadly stampede, as HNGN previously reported.

“You are not responsible for what happened”.

“Fate and destiny are inevitable”. The deaths at Mina have heightened the acrimony between the two countries. Iran’s State Prosecutor Ebrahim Raisi went as far as saying that Iran would sue the Saudi royal family for the tragedy.