Israel announced that it killed Major General Majid Khademi, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organization, in a dawn airstrike on Tehran. This came on the 38th day of the Middle East conflict, a day after a major Iranian missile strike hit Haifa.
According to Reuters, Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, confirmed the operation as a direct response to Iranian aggression. He declared, “The Revolutionary Guard are shooting at civilians and we are eliminating the leaders of the terrorists. Iran’s leaders live with a sense of being targeted. We will continue to hunt them down one by one.”
Katz also said Israel had “severely damaged” Iran’s steel and petrochemical industries as part of a broader strategy. He added, “We will continue to crush the Iranian national infrastructure and lead to the erosion and collapse of the terrorist regime, and its capabilities to promote terror and fire at the state of Israel.”
The killing of Khademi is part of a wider campaign targeting senior Iranian officials that has been running since late February
The IRGC confirmed Khademi’s death on its Telegram channel, identifying him as “Major General Majid Khademi, the powerful and educated head of the intelligence organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” and stating he “was martyred in the criminal terrorist attack by the American-Zionist (Israel) enemy… at dawn today.” Multiple airstrikes were reported hitting residential areas around Tehran during the early morning hours.
Both the United States and Israel have been targeting high-ranking Iranian officials since the campaign began on February 28, the same day Iran’s then-Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, was killed. His son, Mojtaba, has since taken over, though his current whereabouts are unknown, and reports suggest he is recovering from injuries.
Israel has also been expanding its security zone in Lebanon as part of its broader regional strategy, raising concerns about where its military operations are headed.
The day before Khademi’s killing, an Iranian missile struck a building in Haifa, causing serious damage and injuries. A ten-month-old baby suffered a shrapnel wound to the head, and an 82-year-old man was seriously wounded by a piece of concrete. Police confirmed that three to four people are still missing after the direct hit.
Carmel District Police Commander Boaz Smocha identified the missing as a couple in their 60s and their son, around 40 years old, with a possible foreign worker also present in the apartment. “No one from this family is responding. We really hope we can locate them,” he said. The missile was reportedly missed by IDF interceptors. In total, 24 people sustained lighter injuries, nine from shrapnel and fourteen while rushing to emergency shelters.
The seven-story building remains at serious risk of collapse. Fire and rescue services are on site battling a blaze and searching for anyone trapped inside. Eyewitnesses described the moment of impact, brothers Ariel and Noam, aged 17, said they heard a “crazy boom” and that their “house shook as if it had fallen here.”
Neighbor Anat Stupmacher said all her windows were shattered and added, “We can’t breathe in our house because of the fire. They evacuated us, and now we’re trying to understand where to go.” The Haifa strike was not the only Iranian attack that day.
Another missile hit the Neot Hovav industrial zone in southern Israel, an area struck repeatedly in recent weeks. A drone also hit a house in a northern town near Acre, though no casualties were reported from that incident.
As per Hareetz, 566 people in Israel have been wounded by Iranian rocket and missile fire since the conflict began, and 19 people have been killed, with 18 pronounced dead at the scene. Israel has also faced sharp international criticism on other fronts, including a new death penalty law targeting Palestinians that allows execution without a key legal safeguard. Of the injured, 488 were lightly wounded, 37 moderately wounded, 21 are in serious condition, and one remains in critical condition.
Published: Apr 6, 2026 06:45 am