Israel has confirmed the killing of Esmaïl Khatib, Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, and granted its military broad authority to eliminate high-ranking officials from the Islamic Republic. The move, announced Wednesday, March 18, 2026, escalates tensions in a region already grappling with a 19-day-traditional conflict and raises concerns about further destabilization.
The government of Benjamin Netanyahu, in coordination with the United States, is pursuing a strategy of targeting Iranian leadership, a campaign that has expanded to include strikes within Iran itself. This development underscores growing regional instability and the potential for wider conflict.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that Khatib “was also eliminated last night.” He described the minister as being “at the head of the regime’s internal apparatus responsible for assassinations and repression in Iran, as well as promoting external threats.”
Esmaïl Khatib, à gauche, lors d’un vote à l’Assemblée consultative islamique, à Téhéran, en 2021. (Photo d’archives)
Photo : Reuters / WANA NEWS AGENCY
The death of Khatib was subsequently confirmed by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Katz further announced that the government has “authorized the army to eliminate any high-ranking Iranian official” who can be targeted without causing significant collateral damage, “without any further approval being necessary.”
Iran Confirms
President Pezeshkian confirmed the death of the intelligence minister on Wednesday. He wrote on X, “The cowardly assassination of my dear colleagues Esmaïl Khatib, Ali Larijani and Aziz Nassirzadeh, as well as some members of their family and team, plunges us into mourning.”
Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, and Aziz Nassirzadeh, the Minister of Defense, have also been killed since the start of the conflict on February 28.
Funeral for Larijani
According to Iranian media, locations struck Wednesday by Israeli strikes include Tehran, Lorestan province, and the city of Hamedan in the west, as well as the southern region of Fars.
Tasnim news agency reported seven deaths and 56 injuries “in residential areas” in Doroud, Lorestan province, in western Iran. AFP is unable to independently verify the figures provided by authorities.
This latest loss for Iran comes as the country was preparing to pay its final respects to Ali Larijani, the powerful head of the Supreme National Security Council, whose death in an Israeli strike was confirmed the previous day.
Ali Larijani, head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, was killed Tuesday. (Photo d’archives)
Photo : Reuters / Aziz Taher
His funeral is scheduled to coincide with that of the commander of the Bassij paramilitary force, Gholamreza Soleimani, who was also killed, and the more than 80 military personnel from the frigate sunk by the United States two weeks ago off the coast of Sri Lanka.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, promised on X a conflict with “global repercussions […], without distinction of wealth, belief or race,” contrasting with former U.S. President Donald Trump, who regularly suggests a short conflict.
“Reverse the Balance of Power”
Meanwhile, the list of Iranian leaders killed by the United States and Israel continues to grow since the first, Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war, February 28.
“Israel wants to dismantle the politico-security architecture of the regime to craft it falter at its foundations,” estimates David Khalfa, co-founder of the Atlantic Middle East Forum research center, on X.
It’s about reversing the balance of power between the regime and Iranian society, with a view to a exceptionally uncertain post-war period.
Wednesday, the Mehr news agency released photos of the coffins of Ali Larijani and his son. And his official Telegram channel showed the hand of the Iranian dignitary recognizable by his ring, covered in dust in the rubble.
“To avenge the blood” of the Iranian officials killed, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological army of the power, praised strikes that killed at least two people in the Tel Aviv region, Wednesday at dawn.
The Israeli army has promised the same fate to Mojtaba Khamenei since he succeeded his father as Supreme Guide more than a week ago.
But the latter has not appeared in public since. U.S. And Israeli officials say he is “disfigured,” others wounded in the leg. Donald Trump doubts even that he is still alive.
Lebanese “Very Resilient”
In Lebanon, Israel is also continuing its offensive against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement, with the same determination to bring down senior officials.
A strike in the Bachoura neighborhood of Beirut, in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.
Photo : Getty Images / Agence France-Presse / FADEL ITANI
The director of political programs for the Al-Manar television station, affiliated with the Shiite group, was killed with his wife by an Israeli strike in the heart of Beirut, according to the channel.
Several strikes targeted neighborhoods in the center of the capital at dawn, including densely populated areas. A provisional toll reports at least 12 deaths and 41 injuries.
Images broadcast live by AFP showed plumes of smoke over the capital, following an attack near the waterfront, where displaced people were sleeping in their cars, according to a correspondent for AFP.
The Israeli army also announced it had struck “Hezbollah terrorist targets” in the region of Tyre, a city listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Residents fled in haste, amid massive traffic jams, said Mustapha Khairallah, a spokesman for local relief services.
An Israeli strike destroyed a building in the Zoqaq al-Blat neighborhood, in the heart of Beirut, Wednesday.
Photo : Reuters / Khalil Ashawi
“In the south, we are very resilient, we are used to the bombings,” Mustapha Khairallah told AFP. “But they are increasingly targeting civilians. I was forced to leave,” concluded the elderly man, leaning on two canes, as an explosion rang out.
“No Longer Need NATO”
But the global economic stakes of the war are playing out in the Gulf, where oil and gas installations are hit daily by Iranian strikes.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait reported projectiles falling near bases hosting U.S. Troops Wednesday, or intercepted while targeting civilian and industrial areas.
The United States, for its part, targeted Iranian missile sites near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which normally transits a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade.
Kharg Island, about a third the size of Manhattan, is home to Iran’s largest crude oil export terminal.
Photo : via reuters / 2026 Planet Labs PBC
Donald Trump, still, has renounced demanding military assistance from its allies to secure the strait, after several outright refusals.
We don’t need and don’t seek the help of NATO countries anymore. WE NEVER DID.
Iraq, which hoped to avoid the conflict, continues to sink deeper into it each day.
At least four strong explosions were heard in Erbil, in the north of the autonomous Kurdistan region, according to journalists from AFP, with pro-Iranian armed groups launching drone attacks against military personnel and U.S. Interests.
