Editor’s Note: Hours after publication of this article, Israel confirmed the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

As smoke still lingered over Tehran, one question gripped both the region and Washington: Did they get him?

In the wake of the Israel-U.S. strikes—during which the Israeli Air Force targeted infrastructure tied to Iran’s senior leadership—rumors circulated that Ayatollah , Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, had been killed.

Satellite images showed severe damage to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s fortified compound, including buildings believed to serve as his residence and the so-called House of Leadership. Parts of the complex looked to have been reduced to rubble.

Regional reports suggested a high-level meeting of Khamenei’s top deputies might have been in progress when the strike hit. Iranian semi-official media also noted missiles struck near the presidential palace and other north of the capital.

Speaking to the nation on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Hebrew, “There are growing signs indicating Khamenei is gone.”

Israeli officials told Digital they were still assessing the results and that it was too early to confirm the 86-year-old supreme leader’s fate. They did not rule out the possibility he had been killed.

, however, insisted the country’s leadership—including Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian—remained safe, according to The Guardian, despite what they described as an assassination attempt. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the BBC he could not confirm whether Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been eliminated.

The long-serving cleric has survived decades of internal unrest, assassination plots and foreign pressure. He rarely appears in public without multiple layers of security and is thought to operate through a tightly controlled network of loyalists embedded across Iran’s military, intelligence and political institutions.

In an exclusive Digital report earlier this week, researchers detailed how Khamenei runs what amounts to a formal government structure.

“The Bayt is the hidden nerve center of Iran’s regime… it acts as a state within a state,” Kasra Aarabi, director of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) research at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Digital.

Aarabi warned that even if Khamenei himself were removed, the institutional machinery he built—with roughly 4,000 core staff and a broader network of tens of thousands—could keep functioning.

“Even if he is eliminated, the Bayt as an institution allows the Supreme Leader to operate,” Aarabi said. “Think of the Supreme Leader as an institution, not just a single person.”

That reality complicates the situation.

For decades, Khamenei has positioned himself not just as a political leader but as the apex of a system designed to survive shocks—whether from domestic protests or foreign military pressure.

The 86-year-old cleric has faced repeated waves of unrest, including mass protests in 2009, 2022 and early 2026. Each time, his regime cracked down forcefully, tightening control instead of fracturing.

He has also weathered years of covert operations, cyber campaigns and targeted strikes against key Iranian figures across the region.

Still, the scale of the latest strike appears unprecedented.

If confirmed dead, Khamenei’s killing would mark the most significant decapitation of Iranian leadership since the 1979 revolution. It would also raise immediate a system he carefully engineered to avoid sudden collapse.

If he survived, it would reinforce his reputation for resilience—and underscore how hard it is to dismantle the core of Iran’s power structure.

For now, officials say assessments are ongoing, and the question may be answered in the very near future.