With the move widening the verbal horizon in the first phase of an already unprecedented regional conflict, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced on today, that "Anyone selected to be the successor to the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will undoubtedly find himself a target for elimination."
The statement follows the reported death of Khamenei in joint airstrikes by the United States and Israel against Tehran—an act that has thrust the Middle East into a direct and ever-rising war.
"No Name, No Hiding Place."
Using social media platform X, Katz sounded a stern warning to the Iranian leaders now in the midst of their deliberations in the night-time halls of the holy city of Qom.
"Any leader chosen by the Iranian terror regime to persist in the strategic planning for Israeli destruction, endangering the United States and the free world... is a particular target for assassination," Katz said. “It doesn’t matter what his name is or the place where he can hide.”
Katz said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare for these specific missions as part of Operation Roaring Lion, a multi-front military campaign that focuses on dismantling Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure.
Targeting the Succession Process
The threat is not only verbal. Israeli forces attacked a building in Qom occupied by the Assembly of Experts on Tuesday, the 88-member body of clerics charged with appointing the Supreme Leader. There are reports that the Assembly has been convening in emergency sessions to select hardline candidates, including Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei. The plan, Israel is suggesting, is a strategy of a “total disruption,” that the Islamic Republic cannot be allowed to settle down on a leadership structure after discussing the succession.
A Region in Flames
As Katz raised his alarm, the fifth day of the war saw a big expansion in violence:
- Tehran Under Siege: New waves of Israeli strikes hit the “Leadership Complex” in central Tehran at dawn on Wednesday.
- Retaliation: Iranian ballistic missiles were fired into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and thousands of flares rang out like air raid sirens from the sky and the land at around the same time, rippling from within Israel.
- Regional Spreads: missile strikes were reported at Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar and near the U.S. Consulate in Dubai, and Bahrain’s own air defenses opened to incoming threats.
Global Market Turmoil
The “assassination policy” has rattled global markets. Oil prices have surged as the Strait of Hormuz is still a naval skirmishing theater. Meanwhile the U.S. has continued its strategy of “wave of strikes,” and President Donald Trump has floated the idea that the confrontation can last for “a month or longer” as the coalition tries to make sure that “Iran can never get a nuclear weapon.”
And with Iran organizing a three-day state funeral for Khamenei that begins Wednesday evening, the world is still on edge. The latest position of the Israeli Defence Ministry, meanwhile, is that for the new leadership in Tehran, there will be no “honeymoon period” and one that’ll be deadly.
