Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday the Israeli military had killed Iran’s security chief and the head of its Basij militia in airstrikes overnight, and Tehran kept up attacks against Gulf neighbours that have pushed up energy prices.

Katz said in a statement he had been informed by the military that Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani had been killed.

Iranian state media published a handwritten note by Larijani commemorating Iranian sailors killed in a U.S. attack whose funeral was expected on Tuesday but there was no immediate comment by Tehran on Katz’s remarks.

Larijani would be the most senior figure assassinated since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was killed on the first day of Israeli-U.S. airstrikes on February 28.

Katz said Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Basij forces, had also been killed.

The Basij militia is a part-time paramilitary force under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that is often used to quell protests inside Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the Israeli leader had ordered “the elimination of senior officials of the Iranian regime”.