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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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Israel on Thursday said it had assassinated another top Iranian figure, Alireza Tangsiri, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval forces.
It is just the latest in the Israeli military's string of killings targeting Iran's top political and military officials. The navy boss had been "blown up" along with several other senior naval officers, Israel's defense minister Israel Katz announced on Thursday.
Tangsiri had been "directly responsible for the terrorist act of bombing and blocking the Strait of Hormuz," Katz said, referring to Tehran's effective closure of the vital global shipping lane, which has forced a surge in oil and gas prices and warnings of global economic recession.
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The U.S. has said it is negotiating with Tehran to open safe passage in the strait, but has also threatened major new military strikes on power plants. Iran has vehemently denied any direct negotiations for an end to the war, although it has received communications via intermediary countries like Pakistan.
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Israel, meanwhile, has continued its strikes on Iran, which include an assassination campaign of top leadership. Since the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and roughly 40 other senior officials on the first day of the war, the Israeli military has continued to target senior leaders.
"Most of the first line of leadership" in Iran has been taken out between the Iran-Israel war in June 2025 and the present day, an Israeli military official told Newsweek. Recent Israeli strikes have including attacks on officials that replaced figures killed last summer, they said.
While there are still high-ranking military officers in post, there is "almost no one left with significance," the official added.
Many more Iranian officials have been killed than Israel has publicly advertised but they have been not been named largely because of their comparatively lower ranks, the official said.
Who Is Still Alive?
Shortly after Khamenei was killed, Israel vowed to take out his successor and anyone who supported the new ruler. Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the former supreme leader, was appointed the Islamic Republic's new leader on March 8. He was injured in the bombardment on February 28 that killed the former leader and five other family members.
He has not been seen in public since, and has only issued statements via state media outlets. Israel and the U.S. have questioned whether he is alive.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also still alive.
On Thursday, reports emerged that foreign intervention had been made to spare the lives of high-profile Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, both of whom have been seen in public in Tehran and have issued statements railing against the U.S. and Israel during the war.
Pakistan had petitioned Washington to ensure Israel did not attack the two officials, Reuters reported on Thursday.
There would be "no one else to talk to" about a possible deal if Israel targeted the two senior officials, an anonymous Pakistani source told the news agency.
Earlier this week, Israeli and U.S. media outlets had reported that Ghalibaf had been the Iranian leader in negotiations with the U.S. on a possible deal—reports strongly refuted by Ghalibaf himself. He wrote on his X account that such reports were fake news.
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Who Else Has Been Killed?
- Ali Larijani, Iran's top security official, on March 17. He had been viewed as the defacto leader running Iran, with Khamenei driven into hiding. A familiar face in international diplomacy, he had fronted Iran's nuclear talks with U.S. officials in the lead-up to the beginning of hostilities. His killing was a significant blow to the regime.
- Brigadier General Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of Iran's volunteer-based Basij paramilitary force, who was killed the same day as Larijani.
- Esmail Khatib, Iran's intelligence minister, in an Israeli strike on March 18.
- Ali Shamkhani, a confidant of the late Ayatollah Khamenei, was killed on February 28.
- Mohammad Pakpour, the IRGC's commander-in-chief, was killed on February 28, along with Aziz Nasirzadeh, Iran's defense minister.
- Abdolrahim Mousavi, the chief of staff for Iran's armed forces, was also killed on February 28.
- Senior Iranian intelligence official, Salah Asadi, Mohammad Shirazi—the chief of Khamenei's military bureau—and Ali Shamkhani, a longtime security figure and former defense minister, were also killed on the first day of the war.
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