“Every senior Iranian official is a target”

As on previous occasions, Israel Katz, Israeli Minister of Defense, was in charge of making the announcement. “The Israel’s policy is clear and unambiguous: no one in Iran enjoys immunityy everyone is a target“, he declared. The attacks directed against senior Iranian officials should be understood as an “escalation in the war,” he warns.

Katz has accused Khatib of being in charge “of the internal system of murders and repression of the regime“, playing “a fundamental role during the recent protests throughout Iran.” From the Ministry of Intelligence, says the Israeli minister, the files that led to the “arrest or execution” of opponents of the Islamic republic were handled.

Khatib was also among those sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for his participation in the repression of protests last January in Iran. The United States accused him of managing “several networks of cybercriminals involved in cyberespionage y ransomware attacks in support of Iran’s political objectives.”

Katz recalled that the death of Larijani, the regime’s “strong man” after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of Operation ‘Epic Fury’, and that of Soleimani, who commanded the repression at the hands of the Basij militiamen, have been directly ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The order, underlines the Minister of Defense, is that of “assassinate any senior Iranian official“, without the need for “additional approval“, once they have reliable information about your situation. His statement ended by predicting “important surprises“both in the attacks against Iran and in the offensive that Israel is currently carrying out against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran remains defiant

During the night, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard ordered a bombing of Tel Aviv with cluster missiles in retaliation for the attacks The offensive has left at least two dead on Israeli soil, and has damaged its railway infrastructure.

Tehran’s Revolution Square hosted a mass funeral in honor of Larijani and Soleimani on Wednesday. Thousands of people have taken to the streets of the capital with flags to accompany the trucks carrying the bodies of those killed in the attacks, including Larijani’s son, Morteza.

The 84 sailors of the frigate torpedoed by a US submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka have also been honored.

The Foreign Minister of Iran, Abbas Araqchi, guaranteed hours before in an interview with the network Al Jazeera that the Islamic Republic has a “solid” political structure and that the “absence” of a person, in reference to Larijani, “does not affect” its stability.

“I don’t know why the Americans and Israelis have not yet understood that the Islamic Republic of Iran has a solid political structure that has well-established political, economic and social institutions,” said the head of Iranian diplomacy, who is also on Israel’s list of objectives.

Israel punishes Beirut

At least 17 people have died in the last few hours and more than thirty have been injured in the latest air attacks launched by the Israeli Army against different parts of Lebanon. For the first time the center of the capital, Beirut, has been affected, with at least one apartment block directly impacted.

Since the beginning of the offensive against the Shiite group Hezbollah, which attacks Israel in coordination with Iran, Israeli troops have already killed almost 900 people. The IDF has announced that it will bomb during the next few hours the bridges over the Litani River. It will be “a broad and precise offensive” for which they demand that the population “evacuate the area and head north.”