A senior Iranian figure has claimed that Israel employed occult powers and supernatural forces during the recent 12-day conflict between the two countries.Abdollah Ganji, the former editor of the IRGC-linked newspaper Javan, made the statement on Wednesday in a post on X.

“After the recent war, a few sheets of paper were found on the streets of Tehran containing talismans with Jewish symbols,” Ganji wrote calling it a “strange phenomenon!”

He also referred to previous unverified reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had met with occult specialists during the early stages of the Gaza war. “In the first year of the Gaza war, news had also leaked about Netanyahu meeting with occult specialists,” he said.The Iranian official further claimed that the use of supernatural methods by foreign intelligence services had long been warned about by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. “Hostile countries and Western and Hebrew intelligence services use occult sciences and jinn entities for espionage,” he quoted.The post quickly sparked online backlash and mockery. Israel’s political advisor to the permanent representative at the United Nations, Waleed Gadban, responded sarcastically by reposting a Mossad message with the Farsi caption, “Jinn, jinn are everywhere,” followed by a ghost emoji.

Several users ridiculed Ganji’s comments. One wrote, “If you say this nonsense anywhere else in the world, they'd send you to a mental hospital.” Another added, “Mr Ganji, as soon as I was about to curse you out, I saw that friends had already pointed out that you're an idiot, so we shouldn't take you seriously.”