Defence Minister Israel Katz says Israel has killed Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmaeil Khatib. Tehran has not commented on or confirmed the attack,
Al Jazeera reports.
If the claim announced on Wednesday is confirmed, it would be the third assassination of high-ranking Iranian leaders in two days.
Iranian security chief Ali Larijani and Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij paramilitary force, were killed in Israeli air strikes on Tuesday.
A funeral ceremony has been held in Tehran for both men. According to Press TV, the ceremony took place Wednesday as officials and mourners gathered to honour the two figures.
The country’s foreign minister insisted that Larijani’s killing will not deal a fatal blow to Iran’s leadership.
In an interview with Al Jazeera aired after the killing of Larijani was confirmed by Tehran on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the United States and Israel had yet to realise that Iran’s government does not rely on a single individual.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from the occupied West Bank, said Israeli military analysts regarded Khatib as having been a trusted figure close to Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
“According to Israeli sources, they said they have been gathering intelligence that allowed them in the past 24 hours to declare the deaths of three senior Iranian officials,” Ibrahim said.
Katz also announced that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given the Israeli military standing authorisation to eliminate other senior Iranian officials in their sights without case-by-case approval.
“This is seen as another success from the Israeli perspective in targeting the Iranian leadership,” she said.
