ISTANBUL

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed Wednesday that Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmaeil Khatib, was killed in an overnight airstrike in Tehran.

“The Iranian intelligence minister Khatib was also eliminated overnight,” Katz said in a statement released by his office and cited by The Times of Israel news portal.

Katz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “authorized the army to eliminate any senior Iranian figure… without the need for additional approval.”

There was no immediate response from Iran on the Israeli claim.