Press Briefing by IDF Spokesperson, BG Effie Defrin-June 21, 2025

Good afternoon and Shabbat Shalom,

This is the ninth day of Operation “Rising Lion”. We are operating in Iranian airspace and delivering deep blows to their nuclear and missile infrastructure.

In the past two hours, alerts were activated in several areas due to the infiltration of UAVs from Iran. We are operating to intercept the threats. Since the beginning of the war, the IAF has been working to neutralize threats against the State of Israel. But as I’ve said before, this defense is not hermetic. Time and again, Israeli civilians are proving that following the Home Front Command’s guidelines is the best protection.

Overnight, IAF fighter jets, with precise guidance from the Intelligence Directorate, eliminated Saeed Izadi, the Commander of the Palestine Corps in the Quds Force. We eliminated him while he was in a hideout in the city of Qom, in the heart of Iran. His location was revealed following a concentrated intelligence effort. We had been tracking him in recent days and completed the operation overnight. Izadi invested great effort in advancing the ideology and objectives of the extremist Iranian regime. He was one of the few founders and chief orchestrators of the plan to annihilate the State of Israel—alongside Yahya Sinwar, Mohammad Deif, and other murderous terrorists.

Izadi was one of the key orchestrators of the brutal October 7th terror attack and among the few who knew about it before it was executed. In his role, he coordinated military efforts between the Iranian regime and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza. He facilitated terrorist activity and managed budgets transferred directly from Iran to Hamas in Gaza. In practice, Izadi was the main link between the Iranian regime and Hamas. The blood of many Israelis are on his hands. We will continue to pursue the orchestrators of October 7th—every last one of them.

Another significant elimination overnight: in western Iran, we eliminated Shahriyari, the commander of weapons transfers in the IRGC’s Quds Force. Footage of his elimination is now being broadcasted on the screen. Shahriyari was responsible for transferring weapons from the Iranian regime to Hezbollah and other proxies across the Middle East.

Izadi and Shahriyari were at the forefront of Iran’s project to export war into Israeli territory. In this operation, we have brought the war to them—we eliminated them inside Iran. They serve as the clearest example of the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel and its responsibility for this war that has been ongoing for one year and nine months.

In addition, we eliminated one of the IRGC Aerospace Force’s UAV commanders—Aminpour Joudaki, who led and coordinated UAV launches from southwestern Iran toward Israel.

These eliminations in recent days have been made possible thanks to unique joint operational frameworks between the Intelligence Directorate and the IAF. These frameworks prepared the ground prior to the operation and continue to operate now.

Overnight, we deepened the strike on the nuclear site in Isfahan and in western Iran. On the screen, you can see the site where reconversion of enriched uranium takes place. This is the stage following enrichment in the process of developing a nuclear weapon. We had already struck the site in the operation’s opening blow—and last night, we struck it again in a wide-scale strike to reinforce our achievements. This is how the site now looks following the latest strike.

In addition, during last night’s strike, we hit another centrifuge production site—adding to two similar sites we attacked in Tehran last week. These cumulative strikes deal a serious blow to the Iranian regime’s nuclear production capabilities. At the same time, we struck additional UAVs and surface-to-surface missile launchers ready to be launched in western Iran. Denying the enemy its launch capabilities reduces the number of threats fired toward our territory and degrades the layers of the enemy’s defense infrastructure. We also struck the regime’s broadcast systems, preventing future force build-up capabilities.

Let me remind you: we must remain responsible and alert. Strict adherence to the Home Front Command’s guidelines is essential. The Iranian regime has taken heavy blows to its firepower array—blows that impair its ability to see clearly. We see the results of our strikes, and we will continue to deepen the damage.

We continue operating on all fronts, fulfilling our missions. IDF troops and commanders are deployed and operating across all arenas. I will continue to update you as developments unfold. That’s all for now, questions?

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