Israeli military says it killed two Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders

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(Reuters) -Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that the military had killed a veteran commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ overseas arm, in a strike in an apartment in Iran’s Qom province.

The commander, Saeed Izadi, led the Palestine Corps of the overseas arm, or Quds Force, Katz said in a statement.

The Israeli military later said that it killed a second commander of the Guards’ overseas arm, who it 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 Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis, according to the Israeli military.

There was no confirmation from the IRGC on the killing of the two commanders.

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 militant Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But the Iran-aligned network has suffered major blows over the last two years, as Israeli offensives since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel have weakened both the Palestinian group and Hezbollah.

Katz said Izadi financed and armed Hamas during the initial attacks, describing the commander’s killing as a “major achievement for Israeli intelligence and the Air Force”.

Izadi was sanctioned by the U.S. and Britain over what they said were his ties to Hamas and Palestinian militant faction Islamic Jihad, which also took part in the October 7 attacks.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell and Menna Alaa El-Din; Writing by Menna Alaa El-Din; Editing by William Mallard and Tomasz Janowski)