Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Ayatollah Ali KhameneiReuters

Israeli investigative journalist Tzi Yechezkieli published a report last week about the coronavirus crisis in Iran and came to the conclusion that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime is lying about the scale of the crisis.

The actual number of deaths and Corona cases, according to Yechezkieli, is closer to what the opposition has reported and could be up to five times higher than the Islamic regime would admit, the Israeli Middle East expert said.

The regime currently reports that there are 91,472 Corona cases in Iran while 5,806 Iranians died after attracting the virus. However, the opposition, the National Council for Resistance in Iran (NCRI), says there are now 35,800 deaths a figure more than six times higher.

In the report, Yechezkieli speaks to Iranians who have lost one or more family members to the COVID-19 virus, and these people were aware of what is happening in Israel, where just over 200 people have been killed by the virus and where the government is now slowly lifting the full quarantine of the population.

These Iranians praised the government in Israel for its responsible handling of the coronavirus, and one even expressed the desire that she would someday be able to make Israel her homeland instead of Iran.

“No one in the world knows what really happens in Iran during the Corona [crisis], how it is fought in all provinces of the country and how the regime really fights the virus. The older, and prosperous, children returning from school in China started a massive infection that spread like a wildfire even among Iranian leaders – who initially ignored the virus.

"Since then, Iranians have reported false figures and alleged control over the virus, only a few thousand deaths and a low infection rate,” Yechezkieli reported.

"The Islamic regime does not care about the Iranian people, the goal is to destroy the state and the Iranian people," one of the Iranians told Yechezkieli. "If my relatives lived in another country, they would recover from the Corona and not die from it," said the woman.

"Most hospitals lack the equipment to treat all diseases, not just Corona. Only private hospitals have enough equipment, and they demand terrifying amounts of money from people," another Iranian said.

"In Iran, the Ayatollah regime controls the soul, property, and dignity of the people," the man added. It is clear that the Islamic regime is not reporting the number of deaths because it fears the Iranian people who, if they know the truth, will rebel against it. My family members died of Corona because they didn’t know they were sick. ”

Another Iranian citizen added: "if I compare Iran to a country like Israel, it is not comparable at all, because Israel takes care of its citizens and at least completely locked down the country, but we in Iran still don't have a closure. "

"For the first time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has no solution to this threat. It’s just an attempt to survive with the willingness to sacrifice thousands of Iranians. The most important thing is to continue the revolution. I hope that with the uprising of the Iranian people, this regime will be destroyed as soon as possible,” the Iranian concluded.

Yechezkieli's findings are shared by Yossi Cohen, the head of Mossad, the Israeli foreign secret service. Cohen has access to a network of spies in Iran and is directly involved in efforts in Israel to bring to the Jewish state more equipment and blueprints of equipment used in the fight against coronavirus.

Cohen said last Thursday that in all countries that fall under the Iranian sphere of influence and in Iran itself, the magnitude of the coronavirus pandemic is being hidden. These are Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, which are in a tremendous almost all-encompassing crisis.

“There is (widespread) infection and they are lying about it. The figures reported by the Iranians are not true. The number of infected and dead I know is much higher," Cohen said during a briefing about the Mossad's efforts.

Not only the fact that the government in Tehran stepped up flights to China instead of diminishing or halting them or the refusal to quarantine the city of Qom with its Shia shrines explains the high death toll and coronavirus deaths in Iran.

Another factor could be the massive air pollution in Iran. Italian researchers have found virus particles “can hitch a ride on particles of air pollution, traveling for long distances and potentially spreading contagion far beyond what was previously assumed to be possible,” Arutz Sheva previously reported.

Large areas of Iran are subject to massive air pollution, just as they are in Lombardy in northern Italy where the virus caused an unprecedented disaster.

A fourth reason is the laconic and often ridiculous way in which members of the regime or religious leaders have dealt with the severity of the crisis. Some (sometimes deadly) advice has already been given, such as drinking disinfectant cleaning products and even camel urine.

Another reason for the escalating coronavirus crisis in Iran is the fact that the regime is not using its enormous wealth to help the people.

Instead, Iran continues to spend large sums of money on its nuclear program and on launching spy satellites into orbit. The Islamist regime, furthermore, continues to build-up troops and, to deliver weapons to its proxies in Syria, leading to two new Israeli attacks on Iranian targets in Syria this past week.

The last attack occurred on the night from Sunday to Monday when Israeli warplanes fired rockets at targets near Damascus from the airspace above Lebanon. The missile attack killed three Syrian soldiers and four members of Iranian-backed militias.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says he has no idea about ending the crisis and now wants to reopen 122 religious facilities in what he called virus-free areas during Ramadan, the month-long Muslim lent.

The problem with this intention, however, is that there are hardly any virus-free areas in Iran, according to the opposition.