For the first time, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was declared the target of the Israeli operation People like a Lion. This was done after the Jewish state took over a new wave of Iranian attacks on the morning of June 19, which, among other things, covered a hospital in the south of the country. Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government avoided answering the question of whether Khamenei was the target of the fighting. Now the head of government explained that no one is immune from blows. And the head of the military department, Yisrael Katz, said that all instructions had already been given to the army.
An adjustment in Israel’s priorities occurred on June 19, when Iran fired dozens of rockets at the country, which hit the southern and central regions of the Jewish state. According to official data, the shells and their debris landed in at least seven locations. Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and the diplomatic quarter in the vicinity of Tel Aviv were among those affected. No deaths were reported, but it is known that almost 150 people were injured as a result of the shelling. In recent days, this Iranian salvo, which followed in response to the morning Israeli bombing, was one of the most powerful: according to the military, Tehran used cluster munitions for the first time.
While inspecting the missile sites, Yisrael Katz stated for the first time that Khamenei now has no right to life. According to him, as part of the military campaign, the IDF forces received “instructions and know that this person (Khamenei. – “NG”), without a doubt, should no longer exist.” “This is a man who has been at the head of a powerful nation for decades and has a huge ideological influence,” the defense minister explained. – He uses it and openly declares that he supports the destruction of Israel. He mobilizes all available resources, even at the expense of his own people, for this purpose. And today we see evidence that he personally orders the shelling of hospitals and residential buildings.”
Katz separately drew parallels with the history of the Holocaust, expressing confidence that if Israel had existed at that time with its army in its current state, every effort would have been made to eliminate Hitler and thwart his plans. “We would have sent the Israel Defense Forces, taken him out and eliminated him. This is exactly how I see the current situation: Khamenei is a modern–day Hitler,” Katz concluded.
Arriving at the Soroka hospital, Netanyahu himself publicly supported the topic of eliminating the supreme leader of Iran. The prime minister explained that “no one is immune” from the Israeli operation and that all options “are on the table,” but did not provide additional details about operational plans. The prime minister once again repeated his formula, voiced in an interview with the opposition Iranian channel Iran International: after the conquest of Babylonia almost 2.5 thousand years ago, the Persian king Cyrus II the Great freed the Jews from captivity. And now the Jewish people must pay their debt to the Persians, Netanyahu believes.
The Israeli leadership has tried to delicately avoid the topic of Khamenei’s possible removal since the beginning of Operation People like a Lion, but in public speeches Netanyahu regularly pointed to a possible regime change in Iran as one of the indirect results of the military campaign that has been going on for a week. However, since June 13, the Jewish state has been able to bring down the highest command of its regional opponent with a series of pinpoint strikes. Almost two dozen military leaders and representatives of the Iranian security forces, who were responsible for the development of the ballistic missile development program, the expansion of the nuclear industry and other strategic areas, are officially listed as killed.
A number of senior Iranian sources told Reuters that Khamenei’s inner circle, which consisted of 15-20 military advisers before the start of the war, largely thinned out in the early days of the military campaign. However, according to these sources, statesmen who advise the supreme leader of Iran on diplomacy, general political and economic issues remain among the survivors. However, the very changes in the leadership of the Islamic Republic have provoked serious problems within the framework of the government decision-making mechanism and increased the likelihood of strategic miscalculations to an “extremely dangerous” level, the interlocutors admit to Reuters.
It is possible that this is one of the reasons why Tehran is sending mixed signals about its readiness to negotiate with the United States. So, a senior source of The New York Times in the Iranian Foreign Ministry said yesterday that his country as a whole is ready to accept President Donald Trump’s proposal to hold a face-to-face meeting. Washington put forward the corresponding idea in the early days of the fighting, assuming that the conflict could be ended by signing a nuclear deal that would satisfy American and Israeli demands. This is the so-called zero enrichment with the introduction of thorough inspections at existing nuclear facilities.
However, a source close to the Iranian business elite, Amwaj, said that Tehran had already sent its response to Washington. And this answer is hardly positive. According to him, this is a polite rejection of diplomacy “with a good explanation.”
These days, Trump himself also preferred to remain ambiguous about the further development of events in the framework of the Iranian issue. “I have ideas about what to do, but I haven’t made a final decision yet,” the American leader said, speaking to reporters at the White House on June 18. Thus, he commented on reports about Washington’s possible entry into hostilities on the side of the Israelis. The American president added at the same time: “I don’t want to fight either. I’m not going to fight. But if it’s a situation between the war and what they (the Iranians. – “NG”) there are nuclear weapons, you have to do what you have to do. Maybe we won’t have to fight.”
In turn, the central headquarters of the Iranian armed forces, Khatam al-Anbiya, issued a warning statement on June 19: “Any direct entry into this war will lead to its spread to the entire Middle East region and entail heavy strikes that will cause irreparable damage.”
On June 20, the foreign ministers of Germany, France and the United Kingdom plan to hold nuclear talks in Geneva with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The meeting, which will be the first open consultation on nuclear issues since the beginning of the Iran-Israel war, will be held at the request of the Europeans “to discuss the nuclear issue and the latest developments in the region,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said. It is possible that European countries may offer mediation in the current situation, although they largely justified the actions of the Netanyahu government, citing the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had legitimate questions about the Iranian nuclear program for a long time and Tehran simply needed to agree to cooperate in time.