Israel's chilling warning to Iranian leader as Tehran publishes IDF 'hit list'

Israel has issued a chilling warning to Iran's supreme leader in the wake of a "hit list" containing a record of high-profile targets within the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

Ali Khamenei's Iranian regime has marked several Israeli officials "for elimination", including Benjamin Netanyahu, but the hit list has failed to raise significant eyebrows in Tel-Aviv. Far-right defence minister Israel Katz, in one of the first official responses to the list of 11 people chosen as assassination targets, which also includes himself and Eyal Zamir the Chief of the General Staff of the IDF, poked fun while issuing a warning complete with a Game of Thrones reference.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, the minister told the Ayatollah to "listen carefully for any buzzing" in a chilling threat. It comes after Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu 'completely lost it' with angry response to Keir Starmer.

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Posting a screenshot of a Telegram post depicting a tree of figures who make up the Israeli top brass, Katz suggested Israel was "waiting" for him to emerge. He said: "I suggest to the Iranian dictator Khamenei that when he emerges from his bunker, he occasionally looks up to the sky and listens carefully for any buzzing. The participants of the 'Red Wedding' are waiting for him there."

Katz's Game of Thrones "Red Wedding" reference harkens back to a previous Israeli operation during which the country launched a direct assault on Iran, named after the Game of Thrones massacre in which an entire family is wiped out in minutes. The June 13 attack saw Israeli officials claim the state was "approaching the point of no return" in its bid to manufacture a working nuclear weapon.

The elaborate attack killed a series of top Iranian military commanders, who were all gathered in one place, and the new list of Israeli officials alludes to a desire for a tit-for-tat reprisal. More than 200 Israeli Air Force aircraft took part in the opening strikes as fighter jets dropped more than 330 munitions on around 100 targets.

Chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, chief of Iran's military, Mohammad Bagheri and the head of the Emergency Command, Gholam Ali Rashid, were all wiped out in a matter of hours. According to Iranian authorities, more than 627 people were killed in Iran during the 12-day conflict with Israel.

Israel reported 28 civilian deaths and the death of one off-duty soldier, while 3,238 people were hospitalised. Israel also said it killed more than 30 nuclear researchers as part of the assault, with Iran now reportedly having sent surviving scientists into hiding.

Tensions between Israel and Iran have cooled for the time-being as the state focusses its efforts on Gaza, with Netanyahu preparing to seize control of Gaza City in a prospective five-pronged plan. The upcoming mobilisation, a massive undertaking even for Israel, which has been waging war in the territory since 2023, will see Israeli forces enter starvation-hit Gaza City with five core aims.

He has insisted the "best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily" is by disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, establishing Israeli control of the Strip, and establishing an alternative, Israel-approved civilian administration to replace Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.