Kolkata: On June 19, the Defence Minister of Israel said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “should not continue to exist” in a stern warning to the enemy side amid the ongoing conflict. The comment came after an Iranian missile hit the Soroka Hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Defence Minister Israel Katz, while speaking to reporters in Holon, said, “Khamenei openly declares that he wants Israel destroyed, he personally gives the order to fire on hospitals. He considers the destruction of the state of Israel to be a goal.” He further said, “A dictator like Khamenei, who heads a country like Iran and has made the destruction of Israel his mission, cannot continue to exist.”
He also said that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been given instruction on these lines. The minister stated, “The IDF has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist.”
Notably, last week, US officials reportedly said that President Donald Trump vetoed a plan hatched by Israel to assassinate Khamenei. Later, the US President said there were no plans to target Iran’s Supreme Leader, “at least not for now.”
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to take revenge against Iran after the hospital attack. He said in a post on X, “This morning, Iran’s terrorist dictators fired missiles at Soroka Hospital… and at civilians in the centre of the country. We will make the tyrants in Tehran pay a heavy price.”
Moreover, according to reports, the US is planning to directly enter the Israel-Iran war and senior US officials are preparing for the possibility of a strike on Iran. According to a report by the NDTV, Washington is likely to assemble the infrastructure to attack Iran, as the Israeli military confirmed that it was “carrying out a series of strikes” in Tehran and other parts of the country.
