Israeli Channel 12 is reporting, citing unnamed intelligence sources, growing indications that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in this morning’s strikes.

Not injured. Not relocated. Killed.

The assessment is not based on satellite imagery. It is based on human intelligence sources inside the Iranian regime. The same sources that told Israel when the leadership gathering would happen. The same sources that provided the timing for an 8:15 a.m. daylight strike that broke every pattern of every Israeli operation against Iran in history. Israel did not bomb a building and hope. Israel struck a specific room at a specific time because someone inside that room’s security perimeter told them exactly when to strike.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded with five words: “still alive as far as I know.” That is not a denial. That is a man who does not have contact with his own Supreme Leader and is hedging in real time on live television. A foreign minister with confirmed communication to his head of state says “he is alive.” A foreign minister who has lost contact says “as far as I know.”

Israel has also announced that a promised Khamenei speech to the nation, if it airs at all, will have been prerecorded. Think about what that means. Israeli intelligence is confident enough in the assessment to publicly predict that any proof of life will be fabricated. They are not waiting for confirmation. They are preemptively discrediting the denial.

No Iranian state media outlet has shown Khamenei. No IRGC commander has issued a statement confirming contact with the Supreme Leader. No proof-of-life video has surfaced. Iran launched retaliatory missiles at six countries within hours of the strikes. That requires no supreme leader. That requires standing orders and panicked generals. What requires a supreme leader is what comes next: the decision to escalate to total war, activate Hormuz, or negotiate. That decision has no visible author tonight.

Khamenei has ruled Iran for 35 years. He succeeded Khomeini. He built the nuclear program. He funded Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the Iraqi militias. He outlasted eight American presidents. The entire architecture of the Islamic Republic, its theology, its military doctrine, its succession protocols, flows through one 86-year-old man who has not been seen or heard from since 8:15 this morning.

If he is alive, one video ends this speculation in seconds.

The silence is the story.