Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has authorized the country’s military to kill Iranian and Hezbollah officials without explicit approval from higher-ups.
Katz announced the blanket order as he alerted Israeli residents that the military had taken out top Iranian intelligence official Esmaeil Khatib. Katz said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized the directive overnight.
The purpose of the authorization is to thwart the possibility of delays in Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion against Iran, according to Israeli network Channel 12. Katz vowed that there were more “significant surprises” to come as part of the development.
In the past several days, targeted Israeli strikes have assassinated several top Tehran officials, dealing a devastating blow to the Iranian regime’s power structure as the war moves well into its third week.
Israeli officials announced on Tuesday morning that their strikes killed Iran’s national security secretary, Ali Larijani, and commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Basij unit, Gholamreza Soleimani. The overnight strikes also ousted many senior Basij officials and agents across Iran.
The assassinations come as Israel has ramped up its attacks targeting Basij checkpoints and infrastructure. The Guard’s Basij unit has notably been targeted in the war, as the paramilitary force has long been seen as the leading military unit behind the deadly crackdown on Iranian protesters over the winter and behind repression in general against regime dissidents.
The Israeli military is targeting Basij personnel and facilities as the country seeks to weaken the Islamic regime enough to encourage Iranian citizens to topple the power structure.
“We’re undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people a chance to oust it,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday.
ISRAEL SHIFTS FOCUS TO IRAN’S SECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE WITH LATEST BASIJ STRIKES
The Israeli military has also been targeting Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon since the Iran-affiliated terrorist group retaliated against the Israeli attack that killed former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28. Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire as hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians flee the country while the airstrikes hammer Beirut.
Overnight, two people died in Israel as a result of Iranian airstrikes near Tel Aviv.