Israel's Defence Minister, Israel Katz indirectly threatened to kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday, June 19. "can no longer be allowed to exist," said Israel's Katz after a missile hit a hospital in Tel Aviv, injuring several people. These are war crimes of the most serious kind - and Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes, the minister said.
"The cowardly Iranian dictator sits in the depths of a fortified bunker and fires missiles at hospitals and residential buildings in Israel. These are war crimes of the most serious kind - and Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes," Katz said in a post on X.
"The Prime Minister and I have instructed the IDF to increase the intensity of attacks against strategic targets in Iran and against government targets in Tehran in order to remove threats to Israel and undermine the Ayatollah's regime," the Israeli Defence Minister wrote further in a post.
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Iran claimed that the missile attack that hit a hospital in southern Israel was a military base target, not the health centre. Israeli local reports suggest at least 47 people were injured in the attack. "The main target of the attack was the Israeli Army Command and Intelligence Base (IDF C4I) and the Army Intelligence Camp in Gav-Yam Technology Park, located in the vicinity of the Soroka Hospital," Iran's state news agency IRNA said.
It said the hospital was "exposed only to the blast wave" and that the military facility was the "direct and precise target."
Iran's airstrikes intensified after Israel's attacks killed several top Iranian officials, including a nuclear engineer. Israeli forces reportedly hit over 50 targets in Tehran alone, including a centrifuge facility and enrichment component workshops.