Israel reportedly tried to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the 12-day conflict in June.
The Iranian media has, for the first time, released a video of the alleged Israeli strikes on a building where the Iranian president was holding a secret meeting.
The style of attack bore a resemblance to the 2024 assassination of the then-Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah.
The video was released weeks after Pezeshkian confirmed the attempted killing during an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson.
He said, "It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting. We were discussing the ways to move forward. But thanks to the intelligence by the spies that they had, they tried to bombard the area…in which we were holding that meeting."
Pezeshkian suffered injuries
According to media reports, the Iranian president managed to escape the attack with leg injuries.
The US intelligence also confirmed the attack on Pezeshkian, but did not comment whether Israel deliberately targeted him.
So far, Tel Aviv has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in the assassination attempt on the Iranian leader.
Iran-based Fars News Agency said that the June 16 strike hit a building in Tehran’s Shahrak-e Bagheri district.
The strikes occurred during a high-level meeting attended by Pezeshkian, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and judiciary chief Mohseni Ejei.
According to Fars, six precision-guided munitions targeted entry and exit points, cutting power and forcing officials to flee through a prepared emergency hatch.
Experts pointed out similarities between Israel’s attack on Pezeshkian and those that led to the assassination of Nasrallah.
In September 2024, Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut that took place during a meeting of Hezbollah leaders in a bunker 60-ft underground.
Israel targeting Iran's top leaders
According to reports, the Israeli attack on Nasrallah was backed by intelligence obtained through a combination of communication interceptions and local moles.
Similarly, Iranian officials suspect that Israel might have had information about Pezeshkian’s location.
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Iranian media reported that the authorities are currently investigating how Israel managed to locate Pezeshkian.
Pezeshkian was not the only Iranian leader targeted by Israel.
At the start of the war, Israel killed three of Tehran’s top military leaders, in a bid to cripple their chain of command:
- Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Iranian regime, Mohammad Hossein Bagheri
- Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, and
- Commander of Khatam al-Anbiya (Emergency Command), Gholam-Ali Rashid.
Tel Aviv claimed they were a security threat to the Jewish nation.
There were also reports of Israel planning to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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In an interview with ABC News in June, Netanyahu suggested that he was not ruling out killing the Supreme Leader, asserting that it would not escalate the conflict, rather it would end it.
But that plan was reportedly vetoed by US President Donald Trump.
