Israel’s defense minister on Thursday branded Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “the modern Hitler” who “should no longer continue to exist.”
“A dictator like Khamenei, who heads a country like Iran and has made the destruction of the State of Israel his declared goal, this horrific goal of destroying Israel, cannot be allowed to continue or materialize,” Israel Katz said after the latest wave of Iranian missiles struck a hospital, wounding dozens of civilians.
“The IDF has been instructed and knows that to achieve all the objectives, without question this man should no longer continue to exist.”
The defense minister compared Khamenei to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, while stressing that Israel Defense Forces would never allow a repeat of the Holocaust.
Read the latest on the conflict between Israel and Iran
“I compare it to the scenario in which, during the horrific Holocaust, if the State of Israel had existed and a strong Israel Defense Forces had existed, and we knew we could send the IDF into a bunker to capture the enemy of the Jewish people, Hitler, in order to thwart his plan to annihilate the Jews, we would have done it,” he said.
“We would have sent the IDF, extracted him, and eliminated him. And just like that, correspondingly, I see the current situation — Khamenei is the modern Hitler.”
US officials said this week that President Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei.
Trump later said there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now.”
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Meanwhile, Katz lashed out as he condemned the latest missile barrage from Iran that damaged the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba and hit a high-rise and several other residential buildings near Tel Aviv.
At least 240 people were wounded by the Iranian missiles, four of them seriously, Israel’s Health Ministry said.
The vast majority were lightly wounded, including more than 70 at the hospital.
In the aftermath of the strikes, IDF Spokesperson BG Effie Defrin vowed to continue its onslaught on Iran.
“Early this morning, an Iranian ballistic missile directly hit the Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva. This hospital serves over one million Israelis, including Bedouins, Jews, Christians and Arabs alike,” he said.
“Iran targeting civilians with ballistic missiles is no surprise to us. This is exactly why we cannot, and we will not, allow this regime to obtain nuclear weapons. We continue our operations – striking Iranian nuclear weapons facilities, missile launches and military sites.”
“Iran targets civilians. We target an existential threat that endangers global security. We will prevail,” he added.
It came as Israel carried out strikes on Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor on Thursday in its latest attack on the country’s sprawling nuclear program.
With Post wires
