A resident of the southern suburbs of Beirut posing in front of portraits of the former Hezbollah Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, flanked by the two former Iranian supreme leaders Ali Khamenei and Ruhollah Khomeini, on March 1, 2026. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — The Israeli army has officially announced that it killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, describing the operation as the culmination of years of efforts to “settle its scores” and “neutralize all senior figures of the Iranian terrorist axis.”
In a statement, the military listed the pro-Iranian figures it says were eliminated during its multiple offensives across the region over the past two years, headed by the Supreme Leader. The army called this “the culmination of an effort throughout the war to eliminate the top command of the Iranian terrorist axis in the Middle East.”
The statement cited figures including Hassan Nasrallah, former Hezbollah secretary-general, much of the party’s leadership, Yahya Sinwar, former Hamas chief Mohammad Deif, head of Hamas’s military wing, and Mohammad al-Ghamari, chief of staff of the Houthis.
The Israeli army also claimed to have killed several senior Iranian security officials, including Ali Rashid, Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, and Hossein Salami. The military said these eliminations deal “a severe blow” to the pro-Iranian axis and will make the Middle East “safer” for Israeli citizens and “the world at large,” asserting that it has “settled its scores” and “neutralized all senior leaders of the Iranian terrorist axis who sought to destroy the State of Israel.”
In a second statement, the army said its air force carried out more than 700 sorties over the past 24 hours, dropping thousands of munitions and operating “with air superiority” over Tehran. Targets reportedly included ballistic missile launchers, command posts, and Iranian defense systems.
The army also noted that its air defense systems, in coordination with combat aircraft and helicopters, intercepted over 50 drones launched from Iran toward Israeli territory since the start of the operation.
