With war raging in the Middle East, we want to bring you as many trusted voices on the news as we can. One such voice is the Israeli journalist Amit Segal. He writes a daily newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel, which we’re pleased to publish in The Free Press.
At 9:32 a.m. on February 28, Mojtaba Khamenei stepped outside of the family compound to “do something,” according to an Iranian official. Seconds later, the compound was struck, and Khamenei vanished.
Confirmed dead from that strike was his father, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, abruptly leaving Iran’s top job open for the regime’s favorite nepo baby. Still missing, Khamenei ran a highly successful campaign—bolstered, naturally, by his campaign advisers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Despite Israeli kinetic arguments to the contrary, on March 8, the Assembly of Experts—with many members voting safely online—declared him the new Supreme Leader unanimously.
In lieu of an inauguration speech, four days after his appointment, a written message attributed to Khamenei was read on state TV. No audio. No video. The next day, the son of President Masoud Pezeshkian assured the public that despite the glaring lack of proof of life, the leader was “safe and sound.” Meanwhile, Iranian officials spun a tale of minor facial and leg injuries, insisting he remained entirely lucid.
The narrative has essentially frozen there. For the last month and a half, the regime has subsisted entirely on ventriloquism—statements attributed to the new Supreme Leader without a single visual confirmation—while foreign reports have described his condition as ranging between severely mutilated and dead.
