By Monday, Pezeshkian told the official broadcaster that the two had in fact recently held a meeting lasting “seven or eight hours”. Khamenei was hurt in the same Israeli air strike on February 28 that killed his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was the opening salvo in the US-Israel war on Iran. Pezeshkian said on Monday that the supreme leader was in “perfect health”. But Khamenei’s absence from public life has left a vacuum in which disputes between political factions – a mainstay of Iranian life – have become more pronounced and seeped into the open.