Israel’s defence minister has said that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “can no longer be allowed to exist”, just days after reports that Washington vetoed Israeli plans to assassinate him, AFP reports.

The comments from Defence Minister Israel Katz came after the Soroka Hospital in the southern city of Beersheba reported 40 people injured after an Iranian missile strike.

“Khamenei openly declares that he wants Israel destroyed — he personally gives the order to fire on hospitals,” Katz told journalists in Holon near Tel Aviv. “Such a man can no longer be allowed to exist.”

In a separate statement on X, Katz said that the Israeli military had been instructed to intensify operations in Tehran “in order to remove threats to the State of Israel”.