In a daring overnight operation that has sent shockwaves through Tehran, Israel has assassinated Saeed Izadi, a top commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force—just 24 hours after he was appointed to lead its Palestinian Division.
The targeted airstrike, which hit an apartment complex in the holy city of Qom, eliminated Izadi before he could even settle into his new role. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the strike, hailing it as “a major intelligence and military victory.”
“Izadi was deeply involved in arming and funding Hamas ahead of the October 7 massacre,” Katz said. “This is justice delivered. The long arm of Israel will strike every enemy who threatens our people.”
Izadi’s death is the latest in a string of surgical eliminations of senior IRGC intelligence figures. Just days earlier, his predecessor, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Kazemi, was killed in a similar Israeli operation. Kazemi had also replaced a former intelligence chief assassinated in recent months, plunging the IRGC’s high command into a leadership crisis.
Iran had only hours earlier announced the appointment of Majid Khademi as the new head of IRGC intelligence, making him the third man to hold the position in what is becoming a deadly game of survival.
The pattern of targeted killings points to an aggressive Israeli doctrine: relentless disruption of Iran’s proxy war machinery across the Middle East, executed with surgical precision and backed by unmatched intelligence capabilities.
As Iranian leadership scrambles to absorb the latest blow, regional observers warn that Israel’s audacity is rewriting the rules of covert warfare — striking not only operatives on the battlefield but commanders in their homes.
This is not just conflict. It is a quiet war of elimination.