Israel's strike eliminates Iran's top spy official in latest setback

Iran's intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, was killed on Wednesday, marking a fresh blow to the country, as its new supreme leader, who has yet to be seen since taking over, vowed to avenge his death.

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The killing occurred three weeks into the conflict that started with US-Israeli attacks, which resulted in the death of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the US government believes the Iranian government has been degraded but remains intact.

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Defence Minister Israel Katz stated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and he have authorized the IDF to eliminate any senior Iranian official without needing additional approval, saying "we will continue to thwart them and to hunt them all down".

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Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned Khatib's death as a "cowardly assassination", and news of his killing came a day after Iranian security chief Ali Larijani was confirmed killed in an Israeli strike.

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Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader, declared in a written message that the killers of Larijani and other martyrs would pay, saying "every drop of spilled blood comes at a price, and the criminal murderers of these martyrs will soon have to pay it".

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Khatib's funeral was held alongside those of Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij paramilitary force, and over 80 Iranian sailors who were killed when US forces torpedoed their frigate off Sri Lanka earlier this month.

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Trucks carrying coffins draped in Iranian flags moved through the procession, as mourners walked alongside carrying portraits of the slain supreme leader and beating their chests, a sign of mourning in Shia culture.

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In contrast to Mojtaba Khamenei, Larijani, 68, had walked openly with crowds at a pro-government rally last week in Tehran, a stark difference to the new supreme leader's mysterious whereabouts.

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US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified to the Senate intelligence committee, saying Iran had suffered heavy blows, but the Islamic republic was still functioning, with the US intelligence community assessing the regime as "intact but largely degraded".

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Gabbard also stated that Iran had not been rebuilding nuclear enrichment capacities destroyed last year by the United States and Israel, undercutting one of Trump's key justifications for the war.

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The conflict has taken a significant toll on the global economy, with hundreds killed, millions displaced, and the key energy transit route through the Strait of Hormuz almost totally closed, leading to a surge in oil prices.

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Oil prices surged again after Iran vowed to hit energy facilities throughout the Gulf in retaliation for an Israeli attack on a facility serving a massive gas field it shares with Qatar, which later reported an Iranian attack had set fire to its main gas facility.

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Israel has pursued a policy of decapitation against Iran and the militant movements it backs, killing Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah, in 2024, and Hamas's top figures since the Palestinian group's October 7, 2023 attack.

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Despite losing key figures, the powerful Revolutionary Guards and the leadership as a whole have remained defiant, with the Guards launching missiles at central Israel in retaliation for Larijani's death and warning of more to come.

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An Iranian missile barrage killed two people near Israel's commercial hub of Tel Aviv, while authorities said falling munitions hit multiple sites in central Israel overnight, including a residential building in Ramat Gan.

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Iranian media reported that Israel and the United States had launched fresh strikes across several areas of the country, including Tehran, with the Tasnim news agency saying seven people were killed and 56 injured in an American-Zionist attack on residential areas in Dorud town.

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The war has engulfed the region, from Gulf nations to Iraq and nearby Lebanon, where Israel struck central Beirut multiple times on Wednesday, prompting a line of cars to stretch as far as the eye could see along the country's southern coast as residents fled to the ancient city of Sidon.

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Nidal Ahmad Chokr, a 55-year-old resident of Jibchit, decided to leave his village on Tuesday as the air strikes intensified, saying "bakers died while making bread" in the village square and "municipal workers were martyred while using bulldozers".