By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent, Worthy News
JERUSALEM/TEHRAN (Worthy News) – Israel’s defense minister says the military killed two overseas commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Saeed Izadi, who helped “finance and arm Hamas” for the October 7, 2023, massacre.
Israel Katz said Izadi died in a strike on an apartment in Iran’s Qom province, ahead of the second anniversary of the Hamas slaughter of 1,200 and abduction of hundreds of Jews in southern Israel.
Izadi led the Guards’ overseas Palestine Corps, or Quds Force, as part of efforts by Iran to support its proxies fighting Israel, military sources explained.
The Israeli military later announced it also killed a second commander of the Guards’ overseas arm, identified as Benham Shariyari, during a strike on his vehicle overnight in western Tehran.
It said the commander “was responsible for all weapons transfers from the Iranian regime to its proxies across the Middle East.”
Shariyari supplied missiles and rockets launched at Israel to Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Hamas in Gaza, and Yemen’s Houthis, according to the Israeli military.
Tehran has not yet confirmed their deaths, but Iranian media reported that nine IRGC members were killed in Israeli attacks at two sites in north-west and western Iran.
QUDS FORCE
The Quds Force built up a network of Arab allies known as the Axis of Resistance, establishing Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982 and supporting the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
But the Iran-aligned network suffered major blows over the last two years, as Israeli offensives since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel weakened both Hamas and Hezbollah, observers say.
Katz described Izadi’s killing as a “major achievement for Israeli intelligence and the Air Force.”
The U.S. and Britain sanctioned Izadi over what they said were his ties to Hamas and Palestinian militant faction Islamic Jihad, which also took part in the October 7 attacks.
The commander was seen as “a major orchestrator of the October 7 massacre” and one of the few individuals who knew about it in advance, Israeli sources said.
Their announced deaths came as Iranian state media reported that among nine IRGC members killed by Israel were four gathered at a training site.
“Four people have died as martyrs and three others were wounded in an Israeli attack against a training camp of the Revolutionary Guards in Tabriz,” the ISNA news agency said. The city has been repeatedly targeted since Israel began striking Iran more than a week ago.
MORE KILLINGS
Separately, five IRGC members were killed in Israeli attacks targeting the city of Khorramabad in western Iran, the Iranian Mehr news agency reported on Saturday.
Khorramabad, the capital of Lorestan province, was not previously reported as a target in the ongoing hostilities between Iran and Israel.
Clashes began on June 13 when Israel launched airstrikes on several sites across Iran, including military and nuclear facilities, that it said were aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
That prompted Tehran to launch what it called “retaliatory strikes” on Israel. At least 25 people were killed and hundreds injured since then in Iranian missile attacks, according to Israeli authorities.
In Iran, 430 people have been killed and over 3,500 wounded in Israeli strikes, according to Iran’s Health Ministry.
Those figures have been difficult to verify independently.
Among those killed in Iran are reportedly numerous key Iranian leaders and nuclear scientists.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Israel’s political crisis deepened this week as former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett renewed demands for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign over what critics have dubbed the “Qatargate” affair—claims that Netanyahu’s office and allies firmly reject as a manufactured scandal already dismissed by the courts.
The U.S. economy grew at a robust 4.3% annual rate in the third quarter, marking its fastest expansion in two years, according to new data released Tuesday by the U.S. Commerce Department.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump can’t use National Guard troops in Chicago to help federal immigration enforcement, in another blow to the president’s push for federalization nationwide.
Libya’s Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah said late Tuesday that the country has suffered a “great loss” after its military chief was confirmed among eight people killed in a private plane crash shortly after takeoff from Turkey’s capital, Ankara.
The Netherlands remained on edge Tuesday after a car drove into a crowd of people waiting to watch a Christmas parade in the eastern Dutch town of Nunspeet, injuring numerous people at a time when Europe has faced several threats against holiday events.
Officials say massive Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine have killed at least three people, including a four-year-old child, while cutting power to several regions just two days before Christmas, as the country faces bitter winter cold.
The remaining 130 schoolchildren and staff abducted by gunmen from a Catholic school in Nigeria last month — one of the largest mass kidnappings in the country’s history — have been freed, officials confirmed.