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‘You Have 12 Hours – Save Your Wife And Kids': Israel's Covert Calls That Shattered Iran's Nerves
New Delhi: Inside hotel rooms, military bases and secret compounds across Iran, top officers were jolted by phone calls they never expected. On the line – a calm voice in flawless Persian, warning them their lives were ticking down. 'You have 12 hours. Take your wife. Take your children. Get out.' Some hung up in disbelief. Others vanished. And a few, as Israel claims, did not survive the warning.
This was not just war with missiles. It was psychological warfare. A parallel operation. A whisper campaign backed by precision airstrikes and names checked off a death list.
The Other War
While Israeli drones and stealth jets were hitting Iranian missile sites and nuclear bunkers, another operation was underway – one with no coordinates on a map. Code-named 'Rising Lion', the covert campaign targeted Iran's nerves. One phone at a time.
Three operatives involved in the mission – along with a leaked recording – confirmed the plan's scope to The Washington Post. Around 20 senior Iranian officials received direct calls. The message was blunt. Stop backing Ayatollah Khamenei or join the dead.
A chilling audio clip, now circulating among intelligence watchers, captures one such call. An Israeli operative speaks softly but firmly, 'You are on our list. We are closer than your carotid artery. Remember that.'
The target was a high-ranking general. He reportedly escaped. Others did not.
From Threat to Aftershock
Israeli sources claim some of the men warned by phone were killed soon after. The calls were not bluffs. They were preludes. The strikes that followed wiped out important names – Major General Hossein Salami of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corpse (IRGC), Major General Mohammad Bagheri of Iran's armed forces and others.
Subsequent calls invoked their deaths.
One officer recalled a voice saying, 'I am calling from the country that, two hours ago, sent Bagheri and Salami straight to hell. You are next if you do not wake up.'
Letters at the Door
The pressure was not only through phones. Some officers found anonymous letters on their doorstep. Others were contacted through their spouses. It was personal, deliberate and meant to rattle men deep inside the regime's ranks.
No bombs. No gunshots. Just fear.
The campaign's goal? To paralyse succession planning. To ensure that after the decapitation strikes on top brass, those next in line would hesitate. Ayatollah Khamenei, reportedly hiding in a bunker during the height of the war, struggled to replace fallen commanders.
One Israeli security official put it simply, 'We wanted those left behind to doubt everything. Their safety. Their futures. Their leader.'
Despite the psychological pressure, no large-scale defection surfaced from the IRGC or Iran's armed forces. But insiders say the fear ran deep. At mid-levels, command chains frayed. Paranoia was growing.
And that was always the point.
This was not only about breaking bunkers but breaking resolve and killing silence whisper by whisper.
