Key Points and Summary – Iranian state media is now reporting that President Masoud Pezeshkian was injured during an alleged Israeli assassination attempt on June 16.
-According to the Fars news agency, Israeli forces bombed an underground facility in Tehran where Pezeshkian and other senior officials were meeting.
-The report claims the strikes deliberately targeted the building’s exits, injuring the president’s leg as he escaped.
-This new detail adds weight to Pezeshkian’s earlier claim in an interview with Tucker Carlson that Israel had tried and failed to kill him, a charge Israel has neither confirmed nor denied.
Iranian President Injured In Alleged Attempted Assassination Plot
Following accusations by the Iranian President that Israeli forces attempted to assassinate him during the 12-day war, state media reports have revealed how Masoud Pezeshkian incurred injuries during an Israeli airstrike that targeted a high-profile meeting.
According to the reports, Pezeshkian was one of several high-ranking Iranian officials who gathered at an underground facility on June 16 for a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council.
The Fars news agency reported that Israeli forces dropped six bombs or missiles on the site, located in Western Tehran, during the meeting – forcing attendees of the meeting to escape the facility via emergency exits.
The Iranian president, however, is said to have incurred injuries on his leg as he made his way out of the building.
According to the report, the strikes specifically targeted the entry and exit points of the building, disrupting airflow inside the building and making it difficult for those inside to escape. During the attack, power was also cut to the floor on which the meeting was taking place, indicating that Israeli forces were aware of the meeting, who was attending the meeting, and the exact location inside the underground infrastructure.
Was This An Assassination Attempt?
The same report also pointed to similarities between the Iran strike and those that led to the assassination of seyed Hassan Nasrallah, the former secretary-general of Hezbollah, in September 2024. Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut that took place during a meeting of Hezbollah leaders in a bunker 60ft underground.
In both instances, Israeli strikes were informed by intelligence – likely obtained through a combination of communication interceptions, embedded operatives, and other means. If Iran’s claims are true – specifically, that Israeli forces targeted entrances and exits while the meeting took place – it could suggest that this was the attempted assassination that Pezeshkian described during a recent interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson.
On Saturday, July 5, Pezeshkian told Carlson that Israel “did try and acted accordingly but they failed,” speaking on the topic of an attempted assassination.
Iranian officials say they are aware that Israel likely had information about their meeting, with Fars revealing that domestic authorities are currently in the process of probing how that information could have been obtained.
Few other details about the attack were revealed in the report. It remains unclear whether Israeli forces used bombs or missiles in the strike, and where exactly the meeting took place.
Israel has yet to confirm or deny its forces attempted to assassinate the Iranian president, though comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel did not rule out the possibility of targeting the country’s top officials.
When asked by ABC News about reports U.S. President Donald Trump rejected a plan to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader, Netanyahu said such a move would “end the conflict.”
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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