{"id":4287,"date":"2025-06-27T04:41:49","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T04:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/?p=4287"},"modified":"2025-06-27T17:29:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T17:29:54","slug":"israel-sought-to-kill-irans-khamenei-defense-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/israel-sought-to-kill-irans-khamenei-defense-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel sought to kill Iran\u2019s Khamenei \u2013 defense chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Jerusalem would not have needed US permission for the move, Israel Katz has said<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel would have targeted Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei if it had had the opportunity, Defense Minister Israel Katz has said. His remarks came just days after Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, ending nearly two weeks of open hostilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI estimate that if Khamenei had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,\u201d<\/em> Katz told Israel\u2019s Channel 13 on Thursday, as cited by Reuters.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Khamenei understood this, went underground to great depths, and cut off communication with the commanders who replaced those that were eliminated, so in the end, it wasn\u2019t realistic,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to eliminate Khamenei, but there was no operational opportunity,\u201d<\/em> Katz said.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Israel had sought US approval, he replied: \u201cWe don\u2019t need permission for these things.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"A
Iran\u2019s supreme leader declares victory over Israel and US<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On June 13, Israel launched a series of airstrikes and targeted assassinations against senior Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists, as part of what it described as an operation to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The strikes killed Chief of the General Staff Mohammad Bagheri and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Hossein Salami, among others. Initial media reports claiming that Quds Force chief Esmail Qaani was also killed were later disproven.<\/p>\n

Iran, which denies that it is pursuing a military nuclear program, condemned the Israeli attacks as unprovoked and retaliated by launching ballistic missiles and kamikaze drones at Israeli cities.<\/p>\n

A US-brokered ceasefire has since come into effect and has so far held, with both sides claiming victory. \u201cThe Iranian nation demonstrated its greatness and exceptional character,\u201d<\/em> Khamenei wrote on X on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Jerusalem would not have needed US permission for the move, Israel Katz has said Israel would have targeted Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei if it had had the opportunity, Defense Minister Israel Katz has said. His remarks came just days after Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, ending nearly two weeks of open…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4287"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4290,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287\/revisions\/4290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}