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If the demise of Esmaeil Khatib is confirmed, it might be the third main high-profile assassination of Iranian leaders in successive days.
Published On 18 Mar 2026
Defence Minister Israel Katz says Israel has killed Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmaeil Khatib. Tehran has not commented on or confirmed the assault.
If the declare introduced on Wednesday is confirmed, it might be the third assassination of high-ranking Iranian leaders in two days.
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Iranian safety chief Ali Larijani and Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij paramilitary pressure, have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Tuesday. Iran will maintain funerals on Wednesday for each males.
The nation’s international minister insisted that Larijani’s killing won’t deal a deadly blow to Iran’s management.
In an interview with Al Jazeera aired after the killing of Larijani was confirmed by Tehran on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated the United States and Israel had but to understand that Iran’s authorities doesn’t depend on a single particular person.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from the occupied West Bank, stated Israeli army analysts regarded Khatib as having been a trusted determine near Iran’s new supreme chief, 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 stated.
Katz additionally introduced that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given the Israeli army standing authorisation to get rid of different senior Iranian officers of their sights with out case-by-case approval.
“This is seen as another success from the Israeli perspective in targeting the Iranian leadership,” she stated.
On Tuesday, Iran confirmed the deaths of Larijani, the highly effective secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and Soleimani, commander of the Basij, the inner paramilitary pressure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Larijani had been one in all Iran’s most influential political operators, having beforehand led its nuclear negotiations with the West and serving as speaker of parliament.
Targeted killings are a method Israel has pursued in opposition to its adversaries for years.
Numerous Hamas leaders inside and outdoors of Gaza have been assassinated, following a sample of assassinations of Palestinian leaders stretching again a long time.
Longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and former Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed Rahawi in Yemen have been killed, and Israeli officers have signalled that such strikes will proceed.
Since launching their warfare on Iran on February 28, Israel and the United States have systematically eliminated a lot of Iran’s prime tier of army and political leaders, together with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the opening day of the warfare together with a number of of his relations.
