Israel tried to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the 12-day war in June, according to Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei, Pezeshkian’s chief of staff.
Israel launched a wave of strikes against Iranian leaders and nuclear infrastructure during the war.
An Israeli attack on June 16 had targeted a Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) meeting in Tehran and was “a calculated plan to kill Pezeshkian,” Haji-Mirzaei told Iranian state television on Friday. Pezeshkian was lightly wounded in his leg after six missiles or bombs slammed into the compound hosting the council, he said.
Israel deliberately targeted the entrances and ventilation systems of the building to block escape routes and suffocate those inside, according to Fars News Agency, which has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Among the senior officials present at the meeting were Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni and Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, head of the armed forces.
Momeni had struggled to breathe after inhaling dust, and Mousavi came out with his uniform torn and his body covered in ash and rubble, Haji-Mirzaei said.
Pezeshkian managed to walk out on his own, take a shower, and later meet with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, before visiting a doctor the following day, he said.
“Israel wanted him dead, but fate did not allow it,” he added.
Was Pezeshkian the target?
The targeting of Iran’s top decision-making body was particularly striking given the role the SNSC has played since its creation in the early years of the Islamic Republic.
Established to oversee national defense and foreign policy, it is chaired by the president but operates under the supervision of the supreme leader. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the council helped coordinate military strategy.
An Israeli strike on the SNSC represents not just a military escalation but an unprecedented attempt to decapitate Iran’s leadership in one blow, an approach rarely seen even in Israel’s long history of targeted assassinations against Iranian commanders, nuclear scientists, and proxies abroad, according to some analysts.
For Tehran, Pezeshkian’s survival became a symbol of resilience. Yet it also highlighted the vulnerability of Iran’s leadership structure to external attack.
For Israel, the campaign achieved significant tactical gains, but it also risked drawing the US deeper into a regional confrontation.