Israel Katz

Israel Katz, Born 1955 in Gedera, is a Likud career politician who served as Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Finance Minister before Benjamin Netanyahu appointed him Defence Minister in November 2024, replacing Yoav Gallant. He has no prior military command experience, making him an unusual figure to lead Israeli forces during the most intensive combat operations since 1948.

Since early 2026, Katz has been the public architect of Israel's most expansive war objectives. Within hours of Mojtaba Khamenei's appointment as Supreme Leader, he declared Khamenei a certain assassination target . He and Benjamin Netanyahu co-authorised standing kill orders on senior Iranian figures without per-operation cabinet approval . He ordered demolition of Lebanese border villages invoking the Gaza model , and declared intent to permanently hold all territory south of the Litani River .

On 6 April 2026, Katz confirmed combined strikes on South Pars/Asaluyeh and Mahshahr had taken 85 per cent of Iran's petrochemical export capacity offline . On 7 May, Israel killed Radwan Force commander Ahmed Ali Balout in Dahiyeh, triggering an Iranian Foreign Ministry warning that continued strikes on Lebanon could collapse Iran's own ceasefire with Israel . On 14 June, Katz declared the IDF would remain in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza 'for an unlimited period of time', explicitly placing Israel outside the Islamabad MOU's Lebanon clause and ruling out any IDF withdrawal . That stance framed the 19 June flare-up in which Israel struck roughly 80 Hezbollah sites and killed at least 47 Lebanese civilians before a US- and Qatar-brokered Ceasefire was renewed with no withdrawal agreed .

On 1 July, Katz called Mojtaba Khamenei 'marked for death' and 'a dead man' in remarks first carried by Ynet, prompting Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to warn of an 'immediate and powerful response' should Israel act on the threat, and the IRGC to warn of a 'decisive and more crushing response than ever before'. Iranian officials cited the threat as a factor in Khamenei's absence from his father's state funeral, which opened in Tehran on 4 July without him. Assassination pre-authorisation, annexation declarations, village demolitions, and now a named-individual death threat against a sitting head of state set precedents that outlast the current conflict and bind Israeli and international law long after the fighting ends.