Iran launched its first missile wave under Mojtaba Khamenei's authority on Day 10, claiming one-tonne warheads targeted Ben Gurion Airport — Israel's primary international aviation hub, 20 kilometres southeast of central Tel Aviv. The Times of Israel reported the claim. The strikes followed IRGC Air and Space Force commander Majid Mousavi's same-day declaration that all future Iranian launches would carry payloads above 1,000 kg.
The political signal is clearer than the military outcome, which remains unconfirmed. The IRGC pledged "complete obedience and self-sacrifice" to Mojtaba within hours of his appointment on Sunday. This strike wave is the first operational expression of that pledge. Under Ali Khamenei's final days, the chain of command fractured visibly: Pezeshkian ordered a halt to Gulf strikes, the IRGC ignored him within hours, and Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf attributed continued operations to the late Supreme Leader's standing directives. Mojtaba's first act reunifies command and escalation into a single signal — the new Supreme Leader does not inherit a war; he owns one.
Ben Gurion Airport carries both military and civilian weight. A successful one-tonne warhead strike would threaten Israel's primary air connection to the outside world. Israel's layered defence — Arrow-3 for exo-atmospheric Ballistic missile interception, David's Sling at medium range, Patriot batteries, Iron Dome for terminal threats — was designed for this scenario. But heavier warheads alter the interception calculus: greater kinetic energy on descent makes a clean kill harder, and even a successful shoot-down scatters heavier debris over a wider footprint. No damage assessment is available from either side. Whether any warheads reached the airport or were intercepted has not been independently confirmed.
