How One Iranian Commander Nearly Stopped Israel’s War Before It Began
He sensed it coming, and moved. That single act nearly derailed Israel’s most ambitious military campaign in decades. But by the time the bombs fell, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh had sealed both his fate and the war’s trajectory.
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In the final hours before Israel launched its largest military operation in decades, one man in Tehran made a decision that almost stopped it in its tracks.
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh wasn’t just any officer. As commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace Force, he was one of Iran’s most powerful military figures and among the few who seemed to understand the nuances of Israeli military psychology. That insight nearly upended the entire war.
In what was supposed to be a quiet night of sleep for Tehran’s elite, Israeli warplanes were already airborne. Inside the Kirya bunker in Tel Aviv, Israel’s war cabinet had given the green light for an unprecedented strike on Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure. The mission: decapitate Iran’s command system before it could blink.
But as Israeli fighter jets sliced through the night sky, Hajizadeh was moving. Spooked by what he interpreted as irregular military chatter, the general diverted from his home and headed for Iran’s underground Air Force command center. He didn’t know exactly why. But he knew something was coming.
That shift sparked panic in Israeli defense circles. Hajizadeh was a high-priority target—his elimination key to disabling Iran’s retaliation. His move threatened to upend the “opening strike,” a carefully timed operation intended to knock out Iran’s ability to respond. Some Israeli commanders feared they’d been exposed. A cancellation was briefly considered.
Instead, they gambled.
Israeli intelligence believed that Hajizadeh’s presence in the bunker might actually improve their odds—drawing more senior commanders into the kill zone. They launched anyway. A high-level deception operation ensured Hajizadeh remained inside. When the bunker was hit, he was there.
The results were more devastating than anticipated.
For hours, Iran’s chain of command went dark. Sources inside Israel’s defense establishment say the Islamic Republic experienced a “systemic paralysis,” unable to launch missiles, scramble jets, or even confirm who had survived. With Hajizadeh gone, there was, in the words of one official, “no one left to press the green button.”
Unlike Israel’s rotating defense structure, the Iranian military hierarchy is deeply centralized, often relying on the same figures for decades. Hajizadeh had been one of those fixtures—carrying not just rank, but decades of operational knowledge. When he died, so did entire war plans.
Military sources now say Iran had planned to launch hundreds of surface-to-surface missiles at Israel in retaliation. But the order was never given. Hajizadeh, the man who would’ve signed off, was no longer alive.
Israel capitalized quickly. With Iranian defenses frozen, the Israeli Air Force conducted what some now call one of the most successful SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) campaigns in modern warfare, eliminating batteries and command nodes across Tehran.
But who was the man behind the chaos?
According to Israeli intelligence, Hajizadeh was more than just a commander. He was a driving ideological force—a figure described by some as “sadistic” and “obsessed” with Israel’s destruction. “He wasn’t just extreme. He was efficient,” said one IDF officer. “He knew how to make missiles. And he knew where to point them.”
So dangerous was he perceived to be that Israel tapped Lt. Col. “Shin,” a decorated Military Intelligence officer on the verge of academic leave, to oversee his targeting. Shin had previously led operations that gutted Hezbollah’s northern leadership. For this mission, he employed a classified tracking tool, reportedly capable of mapping real-time behavioral patterns, to locate and eliminate Iran’s most elusive figure, according to a recent article by Walla.
“When the strike hit,” said one Israeli source, “it felt like we’d read his mind.”
For a war that was always expected, yet long delayed, Israel’s first strike was intended to define the tempo. But it was the instincts of one Iranian general (and his death) that defined its success.