Iran’s new supreme leader vows revenge after airstrike kills Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Four days after being named Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei has issued his first public statement following the deadly strike that killed his father, Ali Khamenei, and several members of their family.

The message, read by a state television news anchor, marked the first communication from Iran’s new leader since the attacks. Mojtaba Khamenei was neither seen nor heard directly in the statement, fueling speculation that he may have been wounded during the opening strikes of the conflict, according to Israeli intelligence assessments.

In the message, Khamenei vowed that Iran would retaliate for the deaths. “We will not refrain from avenging the blood of your martyrs,” the statement said, adding that every Iranian killed by the country’s enemies would be treated as a separate case in what he described as a broader campaign of retribution.

Khamenei also confirmed the scale of the personal losses suffered in the strike. He acknowledged that he saw his father’s body in the aftermath of the attack and revealed that several close relatives were also killed. Those included his wife, one of his sisters, his niece, and the husband of another sister.

Khamenei singled out the attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab that killed over 165 people, many of them children, in the opening hours of the conflict. He said only a limited part of Iran’s retaliation had been realized so far in the war. He also called on Gulf nations to ‘shut down’ US bases, saying promised US protection was "nothing more than a lie."