Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has claimed that his country’s military actively sought to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the recent Israel-Iran tensions, but failed to identify a viable opportunity.

Takahiro Shiraishi had been sentenced to death for his 2017 strangling and dismembering of eight women and one man in his apartment near Tokyo.

In June 2025, the US military executed ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a strike on Iran’s Fordo nuclear site, culminating years of meticulous planning and weapon development. The mission, authorized by President Trump, involved B-2 crews deploying GBU-57 bunker-busters to target the facility’s vent shafts. While the US asserts ‘total obliteration,’ Iran disputes the impact, though the IAEA confirmed extensive damage.