Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said Saturday that the military struck Iran’s nuclear facilities and killed two senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guards’ overseas arm.
Saeed Izadi, was commander of the Palestine Corps of Iran’s overseas arm, known as Quds Force, Katz said. Izadi was killed when an Israeli missile hit an apartment in Iran’s Qom province.
The Israeli military also reported that it killed a second commander of the Iranian Guards’ overseas arm, namely Benham Shariyari, after a missile strike on his vehicle in western Tehran. It claimed that the commander “was responsible for all weapons transfers from the Iranian regime to its proxies across the Middle East”.
Shariyari was the agent who supplied missiles and rockets to Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis that were launched against Israel, the Israeli military said.
כך נראה אתר הגרעין באיצפהאן לאחר תקיפות מטוסי חיל-האוויר pic.twitter.com/NOajOxryKL
— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) June 21, 2025
Iran did not confirm that the two commanders were killed.
Iran’s Quds Force has built up a network of Arab allies known as the Axis of Resistance, establishing Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982 and supporting the Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Yemen’s Houthis are also part of the network.
According to a Reuters report, the Iran-aligned network has suffered major blows over the last two years. After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, IDF offensives have weakened both Hamas and Hezbollah.
The war between Iran and Israel continues, with both sides launching missiles against each other. Israel aims at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Early on Saturday morning, the Iranian state media reported that explosions were heard in the city of Isfahan, in central Iran, CNN reported. Isfahan is the home of Iran’s largest nuclear research complex, which has been previously targeted by Israeli strikes.
Long before the current Israel-Iran conflict, the former has repeatedly stated that its aim is to dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons program as Tehran often threatens Israel and calls on the destruction of the Jewish state.
According to CNN citing reports from state media, an Israeli missile hit a residential building in the central Iranian city of Qom, killing two people and injuring four others early on Saturday.
The holy city of Qom is close to Iran’s secretive Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, an important part of the country’s nuclear weapons program. The IDF has also launched missile attacks at the Araq nuclear facility.
Iran claims that its nuclear program is only aimed at providing nuclear energy to the country and not for weapons.
Iranian UN ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani filed a complaint with the United Nations secretary-general and president of the Security Council against Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iravani says that the Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear energy program are illegal and the head of IAEA has failed to condemn them.
