Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and avowed enemy of Israel, killed in strike on Tehran

JTA – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was killed on Saturday morning during a joint US-Israeli strike that hit targets throughout the country. 

Israeli officials first announced the death, followed hours later by US President Donald Trump and then Iranian state media. 

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in history, is dead,” Trump posted on Truth Social. 

Video showing Iranians appearing to celebrate in the streets following the Iranian government’s confirmation of Khamenei’s death. He had been Iran’s top religious authority, ruling with an increasingly iron fist, since 1989. 

Khamenei, 86, made hatred of Israel and of the United States into Iran’s guiding principle. His death is a major blow to the Islamic Republic, which Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister have both said they sought to topple in the strikes. 

Khamenei reportedly appointed a deputy to succeed him ahead of the strikes. But the CIA has assessed that he may be replaced by hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, according to Reuters. 

Trump said he believed a large number of other Iranian officials were killed in the initial strikes, but neither he nor Israeli officials immediately named other officials they believed had been killed. 

The trickle of information about Khamenei’s status occupied the news on Saturday even as bombs fell across the region. In a televised address late on Saturday, Netanyahu said there were “growing signs” that Khamenei had been killed during an Israeli strike on his compound in Tehran. Shortly after the address, Israeli officials told Axios and the Associated Press that they had confirmed his death. 

Trump confirmed the death of Khamenei in the post on Truth Social, writing that it marked “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country.” 

“We are hearing that many of their IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], military, and other security and police forces, no longer want to fight, and are looking for immunity from us,” wrote Trump, adding that the “heavy and pinpoint” bombing would continue in the country “as long as necessary to achieve our objective of peace throughout the Middle East and, indeed, the world!” 

Iranian state media reported Khamenei’s death, without stipulating a cause, early on Sunday morning.