The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on the 17th (local time) that it killed Ali Shadmani, Iran's wartime chief of staff, in an airstrike.
In a statement that day, the IDF announced, "We eliminated Ali Shadmani, who was the wartime chief of staff and the supreme commander of the military, as well as a close aide to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in an airstrike on a command post in downtown Tehran overnight."
Shadmani is the successor to Golam Ali Rashid, commander of the air defense unit under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who was killed in a recent attack by the IDF on the 13th. According to the IDF, he had commanded both the Iranian military and the IRGC as wartime chief of staff.
The IDF noted that the emergency command post in Hatam al-Anbiya has been managing combat operations and approving fire operational plans, stating, "By eliminating Shadmani, we have weakened the command structure of the Iranian military."
The IDF has previously stated that since launching the 'Rising Lion' military operation against Iran on the 13th, it has killed more than 20 high-ranking military officials, including Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the Iranian military, and Hossein Salami, commander of the IRGC.