'Hope this will end with Iranian people overthrowing regime'

Katz: Netanyahu set goal in November to kill Khamenei; Iran protests moved up war plans

In interviews with Hebrew TV channels, defense minister declines to promise this will be the last round of fighting with Iran, says regime change is desired, but not main goal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set the goal of assassinating Iran’s late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, back in November, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday night.

He added that the timeline for the strike was accelerated due to the mass anti-regime protests in the Islamic Republic, which also created conditions for a joint US-Israeli operation in the country.

Katz made the statements during a round of interviews with Hebrew-language media outlets. Speaking to Channel 12, Katz said that in November 2025, a select group of officials held talks with Netanyahu “in a very small forum” on the possibility of assassinating Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday, the first day of the current US-Israeli campaign against the Iranian regime.

Initially, Katz said, it had been decided that an operation targeting the supreme leader would be launched in mid-2026, possibly in June.

Israel did not immediately share its plans with Washington, the defense minister said, as Jerusalem was operating “under the assumption that we might have to carry it [the assassination] out on our own.”

But this changed soon afterward, he said, as a “kind of dialogue” emerged on the matter between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump when the anti-government protests erupted in the Islamic Republic at the end of December.

The protests threw the Islamic Republic into chaos. Thousands of protesters were killed at the hands of regime forces, with activist groups putting the toll in the tens of thousands.

Israel and the US were taken aback by the protests, Katz added, explaining that their magnitude created a concern within Israel that the domestic unrest could provoke the regime to launch a preemptive strike on Israel, before Israel could take advantage of the strategic window that had opened up.

“It surprised everyone. The unrest didn’t just create an opportunity — there was also serious concern at the time that, because of the pressure on the regime from the protests, the regime might launch a preemptive missile strike on Israel and on American forces in the region,” he said.

At that time, Katz said, discussion about toppling the regime “came up” between Washington and Jerusalem, and the two sides reached an agreement “on cooperation in defining the objectives” of an operation against Iran. They began talking, he said, about “creating the conditions for the Iranian people to begin acting to overthrow the regime; we began advancing those objectives.”

From that moment on, “There was joint planning, and afterward a joint operational planning process,” Katz said.

He insisted, contrary to some suggestions, that neither Israel nor the US dragged the other into attacking Iran, claiming the decisions by both countries were made independently in light of the perceived threats posed by the Islamic Republic.

Singing Netanyahu’s praises, the defense minister — a member of the premier’s Likud party — said that he believed “the only person in the world, the only leader who could have created such cooperation with President Trump, is Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Katz was pressed both in his interview with Channel 12 and a separate interview with the Kan public broadcaster on the fact that this was the second time Israel has gone to war with Iran within a year, having fought a 12-day war against it in June 2025.

“We met here after Operation Rising Lion,” Channel 12’s Dana Weiss told Katz. “You probably remember what you said there: ‘I can say for sure that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon as a result of what we did.'”

She recalled that Katz had told her at the time that it would take “years” for Iran to rebuild its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and questioned how, despite those promises, Israel was once again targeting those same programs while still coming under Iranian missile fire.

“We eliminated the Iranian nuclear program as it was and had been for many years,” Katz said, adding that Israel was acting now to prevent any attempts to rebuild such programs, and rejecting the possibility that Israel had exaggerated the success of the June 2025 strikes.

Regime change as an opportunity, not a goal

Pushed on whether Israel could expect to find itself in the midst of yet another war with Iran in another eight months’ time, Katz did not answer the question directly, noting instead that the current assault on the Islamic Republic was “much broader” than the previous one, and that Israel was using “three times more force” than it had then.

“I hope this will end with the Iranian people overthrowing the regime,” he said.”

Questioned on the same matter by Kan TV’s Suleiman Maswadeh, who asked Katz if he could promise that this would be the last round of fighting with Iran for the foreseeable future, Katz declined to do so, saying instead that he would not engage in “absolutes.”

Turning to the matter of regime change, which has at times been included on various lists of goals that the US and Israel are hoping to achieve in Iran, Maswadeh inquired as to whether the war would continue until the regime has been “completely changed.”

This, Katz said, “depended on the Iranian people.”

“The goal is to destroy Iran’s ability to return to its nuclear program, to destroy its ability to return to producing masses of balistic missiles, to destroy its ability to help all of its proxies in the region and to renew its operations to destroy Israel,” Katz said. “And the issue of the regime’s collapse and replacement, that is something that we expect, and and want to make possible for the people of Iran to carry out.”

Katz’s explanation of Israel’s goals would appear to put it in step with Washington, which has said in recent days that the stated aims are limited to destroying Iran’s ballistic missile program and its navy, preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ceasing its support for proxy terror groups. Trump himself urged the Iranian people, at the start of the US-Israel attacks on Saturday, to “take over your government” when the attacks are over. “It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”