Naftali Bennett: Israel attacked Iran drone base, killed IRGC commander in 2022

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett revealed that Israel attacked an unmanned aerial vehicle base in Iran in 2022 and hinted that the state also assassinated a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander. 

"I directed Israel’s security forces to make Tehran pay for its decision to sponsor terror. Enough impunity," Bennett wrote in an op-ed published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. "After Iran launched two failed UAV attacks on Israel in February 2022, Israel destroyed a UAV base on Iranian soil. In March 2022, Iran’s terror unit attempted to kill Israeli tourists in Turkey and failed. Shortly thereafter, the commander of that very unit was assassinated in the center of Tehran."

Bennett’s revelation of the attack against an Iranian drone base corroborates a March 2022 report by Haaretz. The Israeli newspaper reported at the time that hundreds of UAVs of different models were either destroyed or damaged the month prior by an aerial attack. Haaretz said that Iranian authorities attributed the bombing to Israel, though Israel did not take responsibility. Neither Israel nor Iran made any official comments on the incident, first revealed by Lebanese al-Mayadeen TV.

The killing of the IRGC commander was first reported in May 2022 by the Iranian state news agency IRNA. Gunmen on motorcycles reportedly opened fire and killed Quds Force commander Hassan Sayyad Khodaei outside his home in Tehran. Iran blamed the assassination of Khodaei on what it called “elements linked to the global arrogance,” a reference to the United States and its allies, including Israel. The operation was the highest-profile killing of an Iranian official inside Iran since the November 2020 killing of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.  

According to Israeli assessments, Khodaei was behind the planning of attacks across the globe against Israeli targets such as businesspeople, diplomats and tourists.

Bennett's opinion piece, titled "The US and Israel need to take Iran on directly," calls on Israel and the United States to make Iran's leaders "pay for sowing chaos through their Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi proxies." 

The article was published against the backdrop of growing tensions between Israel and Iran over several fronts, including Israel's war with Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip, multiple incidents on the Israel-Lebanon border instigated by Iran-affiliated Hezbollah and attacks by the Iran-affiliated Houthis on ships in the Red Sea. Earlier this week, senior Iranian commander Sayyed Ghazi Mousavi was killed in an airstrike in Syria. Iran blamed the attack on Israel, which did not take responsibility for it. 

In his article, Bennett accused the Netanyahu government of ignoring the war Iran is waging against it and letting its leaders off the hook. Bennett also warned against a "new cold war" in the Middle East, arguing that toppling Iran would not necessarily require all-out war, much as the collapse of the Soviet Union came about through international and internal pressure. The former Israeli premier suggested several ways to weaken the Iranian regime, including bolstering the local opposition, guaranteeing that internet and social networks function when demonstrations take place in Iran and increasing economic sanctions. 

Bennett, who served as Israeli prime minister between June 2021 and June 2022, is known for his "octopus doctrine" of hitting not just the tentacles of the beast — Iran's proxies — but also the head — Tehran itself. On June 2, 2002, after a series of mysterious deaths of senior Iranian figures, including Khodaei, Fakhrizadeh and two other scientists, Bennett said that Israel has changed its strategy on Iran and is "operating anytime, anywhere."

Bennett's revelations were met by criticism from several Israeli politicians and security experts, who slammed the former premier for divulging sensitive security information. The head of the Knesset’s foreign affairs and security committee, Yuli Edelstein, posted on X, "There are those who mobilize for the sake of the state and there are those who mobilize the state for their sake."