Israel Planned To Eliminate Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei During 12-Day Conflict, Says Defence Minister Katz

Israel’s Defence Minister stated that during the 12-day conflict, they would have targeted and killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, if they had the opportunity.

However, as Israeli forces focused on eliminating senior Iranian officials, Khamenei likely went into hiding, India Today reported.

In an interview with Kan public television, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz revealed that the country had intended to eliminate Khamenei during the 12-day conflict, but lacked an operational opportunity.

“I estimate that if Khamenei had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,” Katz said, as quoted by India Today.

Katz added, “We wanted to eliminate Khamenei, but there was no operational opportunity.”

Katz said that Khamenei likely anticipated the threat and went deep underground, cutting off communication with newly appointed commanders who had replaced those killed in Israeli strikes.

The report further said that Khamenei has not been seen in public since reportedly going into hiding after Israel’s 13 June attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, which killed several senior commanders and scientists.

At the onset of the war, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former US President Donald Trump suggested that targeting Khamenei could be on the table, as regime change was being considered a possible outcome of the conflict.

The fighting ended with a US-brokered ceasefire on Tuesday (21 June). Two days later, Khamenei appeared in a recorded video, declaring victory over Israel and downplaying US involvement as ineffective.

Khamenei claimed that the US “gained no achievements from this war.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed Khamenei’s remarks as a “face-saving” attempt.

“Any common-sense, open-minded person knows the truth about the precision strikes, they were wildly successful,” she told reporters.

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