Mojtaba Khamenei chosen as Iran's next supreme leader, Iranian state media reports

The Israeli operation against Iran was moved up several months "due to developments and circumstances" in Iran and with President Trump's position, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

"An operation was planned for the middle of the year, with the same goal that was set, but due to developments and circumstances, mainly what happened inside Iran, and the position of the President of the United States, and the whole possibility of creating a combined operation here, then the need arose to bring everything forward to February," Katz said Wednesday in remarks to intelligence soldiers.

"This was something we ourselves had hoped for but were not sure about," Katz added.

"When we spoke following the very successful 'Rising Lion' operation, I also said, and it was clear, we are not fighting the war that was, we need to prepare for the next war,” Katz told the soldiers. “Many intelligence and other capabilities have been exhausted, burned, and used up, and therefore the challenge was to rebuild the intelligence capability, and not just build it but expand it tenfold, and that is what actually happened here, across all of Iran.”

-ABC News' Jordana Miller and Dorit Long

At a briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that a U.S. submarine used a torpedo to sink an Iranian warship named after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a 2020 drone strike ordered by President Trump.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said this was the first time since 1945 that a U.S. Navy submarine “sunk an enemy combatant ship using a single Mark 48 torpedo to achieve immediate effect, sending the warship to the bottom of the sea.”

The Iranian warship, which was near Sri Lanka, had 180 people on board, Sri Lankan authorities said, according to the Associated Press. Thirty-two people were rescued and 87 bodies have been recovered, according to the AP. The ship had just completed participating in a large, multinational Indian naval exercise.

Caine acknowledged that there are a lot of questions about the U.S. missile stockpile, but he expressed confidence that the U.S. has enough munitions to continue military operations against Iran. However, he cautioned that he cannot provide details due to operational security reasons.

-ABC News' Luis Martinez

Iran's top national security official on Wednesday warned the U.S. and Israel that the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei "will exact a heavy price from you."

"Mr. Trump, with Netanyahu's clownish antics, dragged the American people into an unfair war with Iran," Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, wrote in a post on X. "Now let him do the math: with over 500 American troops killed (in these past few days), is it still 'America First,' or 'Israel First'? The saga continues."

"The martyrdom of Imam Khamenei will exact a heavy price from you. God willing,” he added.

CENTCOM has confirmed that six Americans have been killed in the attacks.

-ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian

At least 940 people have been reported killed in Iran, with 174 cities across the country affected by the conflict so far, a spokesperson for the Iranian Red Crescent Society told Iran's semiofficial SNN news agency.