JUST IN: Ali Khamenei Reportedly Dead, Body Found in Ruins

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead and his body has been recovered from his palace according to Amit Segal, chief political analyst at Israel’s N12 News.

“Senior officials in Israel were informed: Khamenei has been eliminated. His body was recovered from the ruins of his palace,” wrote Segal in a Saturday afternoon post on X.

“It’s now official: documentation of Khamenei’s body was shown to the Prime Minister. One of the modern world’s longest serving dictators is dead,” added Segal in a follow-up post.

Axios’s Barak Ravid also reported that “Israeli ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter told U.S. officials that Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been killed in the Israeli strike on his compound,” citing “a source with knowledge.”

A translated version of an N12 update from Saturday morning suggested that the Israelis had assessed that Khamenei was likely “no longer with us” after the United States and Israel launched a joint operation against the Iranian regime overnight, but Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had told NBC News that he believed both Khamenei and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian were still alive.

President Donald Trump announced that the United States had begun “major combat operations in Iran” in a video statement released early Saturday morning.

“Our objective is to defend the the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” said Trump before calling on the Iranian people to “take over” their government once the United States concludes its operations.

“America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force,” he promised.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said that “Our joint operation will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands. The time has come for all parts of the Iranian people—the Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Baloch, and Ahwazis—to cast off the yoke of tyranny and bring freedom and peace-loving values to Iran.”

This is a developing story.

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