MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Israel and Iran have now been at war for a full week, and the conflict between the Middle East's two most powerful countries shows no sign of letting up. The rhetoric shows no sign of letting up either. Today, Israel's defense minister threatened to eliminate Iran's supreme leader. Here to give us an update on Day 7 of this war, we are joined by my colleague, Jane Arraf. She's in Amman. Hi, Jane.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Hi. So there are, of course, so many countries, so many players with a stake in this war beyond Iran and Israel. Would you start - just give us the overview of the state of play across the region.
ARRAF: Sure. Well, first of all, this region is extremely rattled by those renewed Israeli threats to kill the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz put it this way. He said the Israeli military had, quote, "been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist."
Now, Katz was speaking after an Iranian missile struck a hospital in the south of Israel. No one was reported killed, but the U.N.'s World Health Organization says dozens were wounded. And that organization says an Israeli missile strike in Tehran this week killed three paramedics who are believed to be rescuing wounded at the time. And adding to the tension, of course, Mary Louise, are comments by President Trump on his Truth Social site, saying that the U.S. and Israel knew exactly where Khamenei was, but that they would not kill him for now.
KELLY: Yeah, comments by both the U.S. and Israel making this very personal. Are we hearing a response from Iran today?
ARRAF: Well, an adviser to the supreme leader - his name is Ali Larijani - said the issue wasn't just nuclear weapons as Israel has stated. It's an attempt to dominate Iran. And regarding those threats against Khamenei, Iran's politically powerful Guardian Council lashed out at Trump. It pointed out that the supreme leader is a revered religious leader outside as well as inside Iran.
KELLY: Well, stay with outside Iran for a second. How are those threats landing in the rest of the region?
ARRAF: It is really hard to overstate the alarm over the thought of Khamenei assassinated and what could come next. Now, Iran has been considerably weakened in the region, but it still has allies. In Iraq, for instance, the Shia-led government is so far holding back Iranian-backed militias, but we're now seeing threats by some of them against U.S. citizens and U.S. interests in Iraq if anything happens to the Iranian leader. And as a measure of how serious this is, the Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who's a very reclusive Shia cleric with a huge global following, warned today of chaos in the region if anything happened to Iranian leaders.
KELLY: Jane, I'm thinking of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and I suppose one advantage for him is that with all eyes on Iran, on what's happening there, there is less focus on Gaza - the other war that Israel is fighting, and where, of course, conflict has been going now for more than 20 months. What is the latest from Gaza?
ARRAF: Well, every day, there are more victims in Gaza among people desperate to get food aid. And all of that is adding to the rage over Israeli actions and fears that in between Gaza and Iran, this region is becoming even more dangerous and more unpredictable.
KELLY: That's NPR's Jane Arraf in Amman, Jordan, for us tonight. Thank you, Jane.
ARRAF: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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