The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said his country is not ruling out targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the conflict in the Middle East entered its fourth day.
Netanyahu disclosed this in an interview with ABC News on Monday.
According to him, Israel’s strikes on Iran are intended to prevent the country’s aggression against the wider world.
“It is not going to escalate the conflict but will end it. We have a half-conflict that is spread by this regime that has terrorised the region.
“What Israel is doing is preventing this aggression. We can only do so by standing up against the forces of evil,”; he told ABC News.
The development comes as the Israeli prime minister said its military had taken “full control of skies”; as its missiles struck Iran’s capital, Tehran, on Monday.
The Israeli military on Monday issued its first evacuation warning for Iran’s capital, urging people in a social media post to immediately leave a northeastern district of Tehran ahead of planned attacks on “military infrastructure”; in the “coming hours.”;
Iran also continued its attacks on Israel on Monday. It launched missiles at Israel early in the day, killing at least eight and injuring dozens more, according to the prime minister’s office.
The assault followed the Israel Defence Forces’ announcement that it was targeting surface-to-surface missile sites in central Iran. In one strike, Israel reported hitting command centres for Iran’s Quds Force, the branch of the Revolutionary Guard that coordinates support for proxy forces across the region.
On Iran’s side, at least 224 people have been killed, according to Health Ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour. The Israeli prime minister’s office has reported 24 deaths in total since the attack began last Friday.
