Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sustained a minor leg injury in a June 16 Israeli airstrike that targeted the country’s Supreme National Security Council, Iranian state media reported over the weekend.
The unsourced Fars News Agency report claimed six bombs or missiles hit the building in western Tehran as Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi and other senior officials gathered on the fourth day of the Israel-Iran war.
The blasts blocked the building’s entry and exit points and disrupted airflow, but officials managed to escape through an emergency hatch that had been prepared in advance, the Fars report said, adding that Pezeshkian and other officials were injured during the evacuation.
Given the accuracy of the intelligence used in the Israeli strike, the report said authorities were investigating the possibility of a mole.
Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general Mohsen Rezaei told Iranian TV last week that the Israeli military had “struck six points at the location where the Supreme National Security Council was meeting,” claiming “not the slightest harm was done to any of its members.”
Pezeshkian has also accused Jerusalem of trying to kill him during the 12-day war, telling U.S. conservative commentator Tucker Carlson on July 7: “They did try, yes. They acted accordingly, but they failed.”
“I was in a meeting,” the president said. “We were discussing the ways to move forward, but thanks to the intelligence by the spies that they had, they tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting.”
Iran International reported an Israel Defense Forces airstrike near the upscale Shahrak-e Gharb neighborhood in western Tehran on June 16.
Jerusalem’s June 13 opening strikes wiped out Tehran’s senior military command, including the chief of staff of its army, with additional top Iranian officials killed during the subsequent 12 days of fighting.
