IDF targets Iran's 'Destruction of Israel' countdown clock in Tehran: defence minister

National Post
Israel hit Iran's capital of Tehran with airstrikes on key targets early Monday morning. Among them, but not pictured here, was a digital clock counting down to the predicted destruction of Israel.

Israel said it employed “unprecedented force” to attack key targets within Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime on Monday morning.

Among them, Minister of Defence Israel Katz said, was the “Destruction of Israel” clock in Tehran’s Palestine Square — a digital billboard that has been counting down the days until the promised “annihilation” of Israel since 2017.

Other targets in the capital included the headquarters for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ international security and its militia arm, the Basij, as well as Evin Prison, where “political prisoners and opponents of the regime” end up, Katz posted to X . The co-ed prison has a history of abusing, ignoring and violating the human rights of some inmates, mainly women.

The clock’s timer dates back to September 2015 when Iran, trying to ease Western sanctions, struck a deal with the U.S., China, the U.K., France, Germany and Russia that it would limit and reduce its uranium enrichment. Parts of the agreement included a 25-year timeline.

Khamenei, in a speech to followers after, suggested that the timeframe shouldn’t alleviate Israel’s concerns in the interim.

“Firstly, you will not see next 25 years,” he was quoted in an X post to his account . “God willing, there will be nothing as Zionist regime by next 25 years.

“Secondly, until then, struggling, heroic and jihadi morale will leave no moment of serenity for Zionists.”

About 20 months later, on June 18, 2017, demonstrators unveiled a clock to mark Quds Day — an annual event meant to support Palestinians and oppose Israel, established in 1979 by Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In red digital lettering presented in Persian, English and Arabic, the clock displays the number of days above the text “Left before the destruction of Israel” and a repetition of Khamenei’s statement.

The words are presented on an Israeli flag intersected by a fist painted green, red and white.

When it debuted, it gave Israel 8.411 days until its destruction, which would be roughly 25 years from the date that Khamenei predicted — Sept. 9, 2040, what will be the last day of Rosh Hashana, Judaism’s new year and the first of the high holy days on its calendar.

While the Israeli Defence Force has specified more of the targets that were struck, it did not independently state the countdown billboard had been hit by an airstrike.

 

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