Israelis on Sunday celebrated the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, their country’s sworn enemy, who was killed the day before in a US-Israeli joint attack.
“Khamenei (was) a leader of the same sort as other autocrats (like) Hitler and when you cut off the head of the snake, the snake can no longer rise again,” Moti Arad, a lawyer in Tel Aviv, told AFP.
With Khamenei dead, “the situation is the best it can be for the Middle East and for the entire world, the whole free world, because now we are on the path to regime change in Iran.. and then there will be peace in the Middle East,” Moti said.
Like a final verdict, the word “hussal”, or eliminated in Hebrew, spread across the front page of Yedioth Aharonot, the country’s most widely circulated daily newspaper.
Israel’s television channel 12, the most watched, used the same word, below a photo of Iran’s supreme guide circled by a red target.
“Death of a tyrant,” read the front page of Maariv, another daily, in reference to the man who saw Israel as “a malign tumour that must be eradicated”.
For Israel’s polarised political landscape, Khamenei’s death and the attack that led to it came as a rare consensus.
“Justice has been done, and the axis of evil has suffered a crushing blow,” Defence Minister Israel Katz, a member Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling right-wing party, Likud, trumpeted on social media.
“Congratulations to the security forces for the elimination of Khamenei. Let all our enemies know that this will be the fate of anyone who attempts to threaten Israel’s existence,” centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X.
– ‘Israel alive and roaring’ –
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Education Minister Yoav Kisch both used the same excerpt from the Book of Esther, an ancient biblical story recounting how the Jews escaped extermination in ancient Persia, today’s Iran, to hail Khamenei’s death.
“For the Jews it was a time of light, and gladness, and joy,” they said on X.
Religious Jews and other Israelis have likened Khamenei to the biblical character Amalek, the Israelites’ arch-enemy.
“Our air force pilots destroyed the Amalek of this generation.. The people of Israel are alive and roaring,” right-wing opposition politician Naftali Bennett wrote on Telegram.
Not all Israelis shared Bennett’s enthusiasm.
“Khamenei… there will be another one instead of him. It hasn’t solved the problem,” schoolteacher Dalit Avichay told AFP in Tel Aviv.
“I think this war was not needed. It’s only for political reasons, only for Bibi (Netanyahu) to stay on the government,” the 65-year-old added.
“He’s not the only one that threatened Israel for the last 30, 40, 50 years.. someone else will come,” retiree Ami Bell, 60, told AFP.
“We’ve had war since I was a small child. We are surrounded by countries that want to kill us. So I don’t think the situation will be different,” he added.
