The assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is now “an objective” of Israel’s war effort, Defence Minister Israel Katz has confirmed.
Commenting on the order from Prime Minister Netanyahu to intensify strikes against the Islamic Republic as part of Operation Rising Lion, Katz confirmed that “preventing [Khamenei’s] existence is one of the operation’s objectives”, according to Channel 12’s Amit Segal.
And, in an earlier statement on X, he made further threats to the Ayatollah, saying: “The cowardly Iranian dictator sits in the depths of the fortified bunker and fires aimed shots at hospitals and residential buildings in Israel.
“These are war crimes of the most serious kind - and Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes.”
In the same post, Katz appeared to confirm that wider governmental reform in Iran was also among the IDF’s goals, saying: “The Prime Minister and I have instructed the IDF to increase the intensity of attacks against strategic targets in Iran and against government targets in Tehran in order to remove threats to the State of Israel and undermine the ayatollahs’ regime.”
Regime change was reported yesterday to be an “unspoken goal” of the Israeli war effort. Israeli officials were quick to emphasise that this was not one of the official war aims distributed to IDF commanders, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has made a number of public overtures in that direction.
At a press conference earlier this week, he commented: “This is a very weak regime that now understands how weak it is... we could see many changes in Iran.”
He also appeared on an Iranian opposition TV show, itself entitled Regime Change In Iran, during which he joked that nobody had predicted the collapse of the USSR or the Assad regime in Syria before they occurred.
It comes as the war looks set to escalate further, with the Wall Street Journal reporting overnight that US President Trump had approved a plan for direct strikes against the Islamic Republic.
Under particular scrutiny is the heavily defended Fordow nuclear plant, which is effectively embedded into a mountain in north-western Iran.
The Israelis do not have the so-called “bunker busting” bombs required to destroy the facility, nor the B-52 bombers required to carry them – but the US does.
Latest reports suggest that, if no deal materialises, the choice facing the White House is whether to simply supply the weapons to the IDF – and train Israelis how to use them over several weeks – or to simply bomb Iran directly.
However, citing a “senior intelligence source”, CBS News reported this morning that Trump was “holding off” on putting the Pentagon’s plans for an attack into action in case a last-minute deal could be reached including a commitment from Iran to abandon its nuclear programme wholesale.
Commenting on the prospect of a strike, Trump told reporters: “I have ideas on what to do but I haven’t made a final – I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due.
"I may do it, I may not do it. The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week.”
He has been even more blunt on social media, calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, insisting that the country “cannot have a nuclear weapon” and suggesting that the US could assassinate Khamenei
