Israel and the United States began two coordinated military operations against Iran on February 28, which they said were intended to set the stage for a change of government in Tehran, according to The Jerusalem Post. The strikes killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with the country's defense minister and multiple generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran answered with missile launches at targets across the Middle East, including Gulf states and American military installations in the region.
The Jerusalem Post reports that Khamenei died when an Israeli strike hit a bunker in Tehran. The operation in which he was killed is described as the largest aerial campaign the Israeli Air Force has ever carried out. The same strikes killed Iran's defense minister and several IRGC commanders, removing a substantial part of the country's military leadership in a single round of attacks.
The two operations were given the names Roaring Lion and Epic Fury. According to The Jerusalem Post, Israeli and American officials presented them as an effort to create the conditions under which the Iranian government could be replaced.
Why it matters
The killing of a sitting supreme leader is among the most consequential developments in the region in decades. Khamenei held the highest authority in Iran, and his death, alongside that of the defense minister and senior IRGC generals, leaves both the political and military command structures of the country disrupted at the same moment it is engaged in open conflict with Israel and the United States.
The exchanges have also drawn in a wider set of actors. Iran's retaliatory missile fire was not limited to Israel but reached Gulf states and US bases, which means the fighting has spread beyond the two countries that opened it. Casualty figures released since the campaign began show the cost on the Israeli and American sides as well.
Casualties and the wider exchange
Since February 28, ballistic missile attacks on Israel have killed 39 Israel Defense Forces soldiers and 23 civilians, The Jerusalem Post reports. At least 7,693 people have been injured in those attacks. CENTCOM, the US military command responsible for the region, said 18 American soldiers were also killed.
The figures cover only the period since the operations began and only the Israeli and American toll from missile strikes. The reporting summarized by The Jerusalem Post does not give a casualty count for Iran or for the Gulf states that were targeted, and it does not detail the extent of damage to US bases.
The pattern described is one of sustained missile fire rather than a single exchange. Iran's response came after the opening Israeli-American air campaign and has continued in the weeks since, with Israel absorbing repeated ballistic missile attacks. The combined death toll on the Israeli and American sides stands at 80, with thousands more wounded.
A campaign without a stated end point
The stated aim of the operations, creating conditions for regime change, is a political objective rather than a purely military one, and it sets the campaign apart from earlier rounds of fighting between Israel and Iran. The Jerusalem Post's reporting does not indicate what specific steps Israeli and American planners believe would produce such a change, nor how long they expect the campaign to run.
What the reporting does establish is the scale of the opening blow. The strike that killed Khamenei was part of the largest aerial operation in the Israeli Air Force's history, and it took out not only the supreme leader but the defense minister and a group of IRGC generals at the same time. Iran's military establishment therefore lost several of its most senior figures within days of the campaign's start.
Iran's decision to fire on Gulf states and US bases, rather than confining its response to Israel, widened the conflict's geography. Those attacks are the reason American service members are among the dead, with CENTCOM confirming 18 killed.
The Jerusalem Post's coverage is presented as a running account of developments across Israel, Iran and the Middle East, and the details above reflect what it had reported as of October 20, 2026.
What to watch next is whether Iran's retaliatory missile campaign continues at its current pace, how the Gulf states respond to being drawn into the exchange, and whether Israel and the US clarify what a change of government in Tehran would actually require.
