{"id":1964,"date":"2026-03-18T11:05:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T11:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2026-03-18T11:10:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T11:10:55","slug":"irans-intelligence-minister-killed-in-strike-israel-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/irans-intelligence-minister-killed-in-strike-israel-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s intelligence minister killed in strike, Israel claims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><br>Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz claimed Wednesday that Iran\u2019s intelligence minister, Esmaeil Khatib, was killed in an overnight airstrike in Tehran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed alignleft is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Israeli media claim Iran\u2019s intelligence minister Esmail Khatib was targeted in a strike on Tehran, with officials assessing the outcome of the attack. Iran has yet to comment on this development. <br><br>\ud83d\udd34 LIVE updates: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0DjOjDgH3U\">https:\/\/t.co\/0DjOjDgH3U<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/A3ZYmNaoaC\">pic.twitter.com\/A3ZYmNaoaC<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AJEnglish\/status\/2034194591792922844?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 18, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>\u201cThe Iranian intelligence minister Khatib was also eliminated overnight,\u201d Katz said in a statement released by his office and cited by The Times of Israel news portal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Katz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has \u201cauthorized the army to eliminate any senior Iranian figure\u2026 without the need for additional approval.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>There was no immediate response from Iran on the Israeli claim. -AA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz claimed Wednesday that Iran\u2019s intelligence minister, Esmaeil Khatib, was killed in an overnight airstrike in Tehran. \u201cThe Iranian intelligence minister Khatib was also eliminated overnight,\u201d Katz said in a statement released by his office and cited by The Times of Israel news portal. Katz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,205,168],"tags":[65,15,262,19,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-1964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conflict-zones","8":"category-secondary-story","9":"category-world","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-olivenewsnetwork","13":"tag-war-crimes","14":"tag-zionist"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1968,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions\/1968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olivenewsnetwork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}