Netanyahu and Defence Minister Katz granted the IDF and Mossad blanket authorisation to carry out targeted killings of senior Iranian and Hezbollah figures without prior political sign-off when time-sensitive intelligence emerges1. A senior Israeli official told Ynet the policy is unprecedented: "This has never happened before"2. Previous operations — including the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024 — required cabinet-level approval for each target.
The cabinet's role in Israeli assassination policy was never procedural. It weighed diplomatic fallout, alliance costs, and the risk of retaliatory escalation against operational gain. The 2004 assassinations of Hamas founders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, carried out weeks apart, were both individually cabinet-approved — and both drew international condemnation that political leaders had factored into their decision. Removing this filter transfers the risk calculus to military and intelligence commanders whose institutional incentive favours action over restraint.
The authorisation formalises what the past seventy-two hours demonstrated in practice. IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin — who disclosed operational plans extending through Passover — stated on camera that Mojtaba Khamenei "is not immune" and that Israel would "pursue him, find him, and neutralise him." This is the first public threat by an Israeli military official against a sitting Supreme Leader. Two days before the Larijani strike, the Israeli Air Force destroyed an aircraft used by the late Ali Khamenei at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran3. The pattern — destroying a leader's transport, killing his senior officials, publicly threatening his successor, then removing the political approval requirement — is systematic.
Three weeks ago, Netanyahu told reporters he would not "take out a life insurance policy" on adversary leaders. The blanket authorisation resolves that ambiguity in practice. The tent encampment where the Basij commander and his deputy were found shows Iranian leaders are already mobile; the pre-authorisation is designed to match the speed of that adaptation. Intelligence on dispersed targets is perishable — a cabinet convened at 2 a.m. to approve a strike on a figure who will move by dawn was precisely the constraint Israel has now discarded.
