Name: Israel’s decades-long policy of assassinating Iran’s leaders
Uploaded: 2026-03-21T23:02:13.000Z
Duration: 5 min 49 s
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For the Israeli perspective, you're in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Adverbs of degree

Noor, just hours after Donald Trump said that he was considering winding down his words, the war against Iran, Israel's defense minister said that attacks on Iran on their end will continue on an even greater scale.

This week, the intensity of the strikes to be carried out by the IDF and US Military against the Iranian terror regime and the infrastructure on which it relies will rise.

The campaign led by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will continue.

We are determined to keep leading the offensive against the Iranian terror regime, to behead its commanders and thwart its strategic capabilities until every security threat is eliminated.

Noor, the Israeli defense minister saying that the Israeli and American campaign is going to continue.

Well, Sarah, in Israel, the assessment is that this war could end abruptly if the US President decides so and so what is happening is that Israel is maximizing benefit in the time that it has left.

So it is going after the foundations of the regime in Iran or the system of government in Iran.

It is not hitting, for example, the assets, the nuclear, the ballistic missiles and so on.

It is focusing more on hitting leaders, on hitting even checkpoints of internal security and so on.

Because the again, the military and intelligence community in Israel says that Israel has to maximize benefit while it still has the American go ahead and American involvement in the war.

Because as soon as Trump says this war is over, it will be extremely difficult for Israel to maintain any kind of military posture with Iran.

And nor while this joint US Israel military campaign continues, Israel has been focusing on eliminating assassinating Iran's leaders, political leaders, military leaders, intelligence, security, really across the board.

It's something that you've been looking at in quite some depth.

I mean, this is part of a policy that has made Israel's spy agency notorious, conducting thousands of attacks against people of all nationalities across the globe.

And even though there are questions as to whether these, this policy of assassinations really works, it is something that Israel has been practicing since its establishment in 1948.

Hundreds of thousands mourn high ranking figures killed in Israeli strikes just weeks after the assassination of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel has used political assassinations since its inception, starting with Swedish diplomat Volk Bernadotte killed by a Zionist armed group known as the Stern Gang in 1948.

Over the decades, Israel has carried out thousands of COVID and public assassinations around the world.

The Mossad spy agency stood behind many of those operations, which included abductions, hit squads, bombings and even poison.

In the 1960s, the Mossad unleashed Operation Damocles, targeting German scientists working with Egypt, led by Jamal Abdel Nasser to develop its missile capabilities.

In the 70s and 80s, Israel assassinated dozens of Palestinians, intellectuals including author Ghassan Kanafani and diplomats such as Mahmoud Alhamshari, as well as other prominent figures like Khalil Al Wazir.

The targeted killings accelerated after the year 2000, claiming the lives of many well known activists and high profile political figures in the occupied west bank and Gaza, among them PLO leader Abu ali Mustafa in 2001 and Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in 2004.

Palestinians have long maintained that Israel was behind the mysterious illness and subsequent death of President Yasser Arafat.

Israel is also accused of assassinating dozens of Iraqi and Iranian scientists over the years.

By 2023, state sponsored killings had reached industrial scale.

Hundreds of Palestinian journalists, artists, academics and doctors were targeted, often with their families.

During the war on Gaza, Israel assassinated senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, Beirut and Tehran.

It also killed Hezbollah's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, and

just days later, his favored successor, along with other senior officials.

Now Israel has removed political approvals needed for assassinations, authorizing the army to target any Iranian or Hezbollah leader when the opportunity arises.

But questions remain though, as to whether all these killings will make Israel safe, as its leaders claim.