Israeli forces have killed Iranian intelligence minister Esmaeil Khatib, making him the third major Islamic Republic figure to have been taken out in the past two days, the Jewish state’s defense minister said Wednesday.
In a statement to the Times of Israel, Katz said Khatib had been “eliminated” and predicted “significant surprises” Wednesday in Israel’s war against Iran and Tehran-backed Hezbollah.
“On this day, significant surprises are expected across all arenas that will escalate the war we are conducting against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon,” Katz said. “The intensity of the strikes in Iran is increasing.”
Khatib was one of 10 Iranian officials with a $10 million price on his head, with the State Department offering Iranian citizens the money and the ability to move to America in exchange for information on their whereabouts.
The intelligence minister oversaw Iran’s global terror apparatus, with a senior Israeli official telling Fox News that he had “American blood on his hands.”
“His network specifically targeted current and former US officials, including President Donald Trump,” they said.
Meanwhile, Iran launched retaliatory attacks overnight over the deaths of de facto leader Ali Larijani and Basij paramilitary leader Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani Soleimani, whose funerals will be held today.
Larijani, 68, was the most senior Iranian leader to be killed since the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war.
Amir Hatami, Iran’s army chief, warned the response to the assassinations would be “decisive and regretful” and vowed the the deaths of “martyrs” would be avenged.
Senior military official Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, who has been sanctioned by the US Treasury, warned President Trump he must “wait for our surprises” and claimed Iran’s response would be “more devastating than the actions and imagination of the enemy,” according to the offiical Tasnim News Agency.
A couple in their 70s were killed by an Iranian cluster missile in Ramat Gan – a city located to the east of Tel Aviv.
The couple was just meters away from their safe room when they were killed, according to Tel Aviv District police commander Haim Sargaroff.
A Tel Aviv train station was damaged and a vehicle was set ablaze during the airstrikes.
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