Fake Israeli phone call lured 20 top IRGC leaders to their deaths in Israeli airstrike - report

The Jewish Chronicle reported Tuesday that Israel's foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, carried out a sophisticated disinformation operation using Iranian communication channels to target 20 senior military officials of the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during the opening phase of last week’s unprecedented Israeli strike on Iran’s military and nuclear sites.

On Monday, veteran Israeli journalist Amit Segal revealed details concerning the Mossad operation against the senior IRGC leaders.

“What Israel did was create a fake phone call for 20 members of the air force senior staff and calling them to a specific bunker in Tehran,” Segal said in an interview with the U.S. podcast "Call Me Back." The fake Israeli phone operation called for an “emergency meeting” for top IRGC operatives.

"The ruse successfully drew the entire senior leadership of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," Segal explained. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) then targeted the top Iranian military leaders in the specific location, which effectively became a death trap.

The “falsified communications through Iranian channels” succeeding in luring “the entire senior leadership of Iran’s IRGC Aerospace Force – including Commander-General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, his deputies and key technical personnel – into a fortified bunker outside Tehran.”

Hajizadeh reportedly played a central role in directing last year’s massive ballistic missile and drone attacks on the Jewish state.

The report stated that the “bunker was hit in a precision airstrike, eliminating Iran’s top missile command.”

The successful elimination of 20 top Iranian military leaders had a significant impact on Iran's ability to quickly respond to the massive Israeli aerial strike on numerous military and nuclear sites.

The Iranian military is characterized by a rigid hierarchy, where mid-level officers are not authorized to act without specific orders from their superiors. However, the elimination of Iran’s top military leadership meant that there was no one who was “alive to give the command to strike back.”

The elimination of Iran’s top military leaders paralyzed the Tehran regime for several hours. However, the ayatollah regime and the IRGC fired a barrage of some 100 ballistic missiles against Israel some time later.

The New York Times recently revealed that the Iranian regime had initially planned to overwhelm Israel’s aerial defense systems with a barrage of approximately 1,000 ballistic missiles, but that plan was thwarted by the IAF's pre-emptive offensive campaigns.

The Iranian regime has so far fired some 500 ballistic missiles over the past week. Twenty-four Israelis have been killed and several hundred injured in Iranian missile attacks as of publication.

While Tehran has continued attacking Israel throughout the week, the number of Iranian missiles in each barrage has been declining, as Israel has actively been targeting missile depots and missile launchers.

The IDF estimated on Thursday that two-thirds of Iran’s missile launchers had been neutralized in the ongoing battle.

The international community is currently waiting to see whether U.S. President Donald Trump will order the U.S. military to carry out strikes against Iranian nuclear and military sites. There is a specific focus on Iran’s heavily fortified nuclear facility, Fordo. Military experts believe that only the U.S. military and its massive bombs are capable of penetrating and destroying the nuclear facility, which is built under a mountain.

Trump has repeatedly stated that he will not permit the ayatollahs from acquiring nuclear weapons. It was reported on Thursday that Trump would decide on a potential strike against Iran within two weeks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed that Israel will somehow dismantle Fordo with our without U.S. assistance.