Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has reportedly rejected proposals for reducing tensions or for a ceasefire with the United States that were conveyed to Tehran by two intermediary countries, a senior Iranian official said on Tuesday.
The rejection came as Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, said on Tuesday the Israeli military had killed Iran’s security chief and the head of its Basij militia in airstrikes overnight.
Khamenei’s stance for revenge against the U.S. and Israel was “very tough and serious” in his first foreign policy session, the official said, without clarifying whether the leader attended the session in person.
The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is in its third week with at least 2,000 people dead and no end in sight. The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed off, with U.S. allies rebuffing U.S. President Donald Trump’s request for help to reopen the critical waterway, raising energy prices and fears of inflation.
The senior official, who asked not to be named, said the supreme leader had said it was not “the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation”.
Reuters also quoted three sources on March 14 that Trump’s administration has rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending the Iran war.
Meanwhile, KKatz has said in a sstatement that he had been informed by the military that Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani had been killed.
Iranian state media published a handwritten note by Larijani commemorating Iranian sailors killed in a U.S. attack whose funeral was expected on Tuesday but there was no immediate comment by Tehran on Katz’s remarks.
Larijani would be the most senior figure assassinated since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was killed on the first day of Israeli-U.S. airstrikes on February 28
Katz said Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Basij forces, had also been killed.
The Basij militia is a part-time paramilitary force under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that is often used to quell protests inside Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the Israeli leader had ordered “the elimination of senior officials of the Iranian regime”.
The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is in its third week, with at least 2,000 people killed and no end in sight. The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed off and U.S. allies have rebuffed U.S. President Donald Trump’s calls for them to help to reopen the vital waterway, through which about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
There was no let-up in attacks by both sides early on Tuesday, with Iran launching missiles on Israel overnight, underscoring that Tehran retains the capacity to carry out long-range strikes despite more than two weeks of pounding by U.S. and Israeli weapons.
The Israeli military said it was targeting “Iranian regime infrastructure” with a new wave of strikes across Tehran, as well as Hezbollah sites in Beirut, a day after saying it had drawn up detailed plans for at least three more weeks of war with Iran.
