Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has revealed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, would have been assassinated during the recent conflict between Israel and Iran if Israeli forces had managed to locate him.
Speaking on Thursday in an interview with Kan, Israel’s public radio, Katz stated:
“If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out.”
Katz disclosed that Israel made intensive efforts to find Khamenei during the war, but the Iranian leader had gone deep underground, even cutting off communication with military commanders.
He also addressed the issue in a separate interview with Channel 13, confirming that assassination plans against Iranian leaders had now been suspended due to the recently brokered ceasefire.
“There’s a difference between before the ceasefire and after the ceasefire,” he noted.
During the height of the 12-day war, Katz had publicly declared that Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist”, amid reports that the United States vetoed Israeli plans to target the Iranian leader.
Katz issued a stern warning:
“He should learn from the late Nasrallah, who stayed deep in the bunker for a long time,” referencing former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in a September 2024 Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
Despite the war’s conclusion on June 24, Katz emphasized that Israel retains aerial superiority over Iran and remains prepared to take action if provoked.
“We won’t allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons or threaten us with long-range missiles,” he asserted.
In another interview with Channel 12, the Defence Minister admitted that while his country doesn’t know the exact locations of all enriched uranium stockpiles in Iran, recent strikes had crippled the country’s uranium enrichment infrastructure.
“The material itself was not the main target. What we neutralised were Iran’s enrichment capabilities,” Katz clarified.
