Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 26, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleIran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei evaded an Israeli assassination attempt by going underground during a 12-day conflict, which ended with a ceasefire.
(Reuters) -Israel would have killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were it possible during the countries' 12-day war, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday.
"I estimate that if Khamenei had been in our sights, we would have taken him out," Katz said in the interview with Israel's Kan public television.
"But Khamenei understood this, went underground to very great depths, and broke off contacts with the commanders who replaced those commanders who were eliminated, so it wasn’t realistic in the end," he said.
Israel killed several top Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists on June 13 at the start of the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump had both suggested at various times during the air war that Khamenei's life could be in danger as regime change could be a result of the war that ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Howard Goller; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
Defence Minister Israel Katz stated that Israel would have killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei if he had been in their sights during the war.
Khamenei went underground to great depths and broke off contacts with commanders, making it unrealistic for Israel to target him.
Israel killed several top Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists at the start of the war on June 13.
Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump indicated that Khamenei's life could be in danger during the air war.
The article refers to a 12-day war between Israel and Iran.
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