Israel's Defence Minister Reveals Netanyahu Decided to Kill Khamenei Back in November 2025

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli attack at the end of February. Israeli Defence Minister Katz said the decision to kill Khamenei was made in November last year. Cited by Reuters on Friday (6 March 2026), Khamenei died in the early hours of the US-Israeli airstrikes that began on Saturday, in the first assassination of an Iranian leader by airstrike. The joint airstrike nearly entered its first weekend after the opening strike killed the country’s leaders and sparked a regional war. ‘In November last year, we held a meeting with the prime minister in a very closed forum and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set the goal of erasing Khamenei,’ Katz told Israeli TV channel N12. The plan was eventually shared with Washington and moved forward around January after protests erupted in Iran. At that time Israel feared the clerical rulers under pressure would launch attacks against Israel and US assets in the Middle East, Katz said. Israel says the aim is to eliminate the existential threat it sees in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and to bring about regime change. The Iranian rulers have shown no signs of relinquishing power.