Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed on Wednesday that Israel had eliminated Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib in a strike Tuesday night in Tehran, adding that “the intensity of the strikes in Iran is stepping up.”

Speaking during a situation assessment on Wednesday morning, Katz declared that “we are in the midst of the decisive stage” of the operation and that “during the course of this day, significant surprises are expected across all fronts, raising the level of the war we are conducting against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

He described Khatib as being “responsible for the regime’s internal repression and murder apparatus as well as for advancing external threats,” noting that his targeted killing followed the “powerful eliminations of senior regime figures—Iran’s de facto leader and the head of the Basij ‘Murder Inc.’ organization, Larijani and Soleimani,” referring to former Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani and Gholamreza Soleimani, former commander of Iran’s Basij forces.