Benjamin Netanyahu denies report that Trump halted a strike on the Islamic Republic

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a Financial Times report that Donald Trump had halted a large-scale Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic. He called the report biased and incorrect and told the Israeli network Arutz Sheva that the truth would one day come out. DIAR published the details of the claim in an earlier report.

According to the Financial Times report published on Tuesday, 20 October, Netanyahu had prepared a multi-day bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic for the weekend of 10 October, covering power plants, nuclear facilities and regime sites, but Trump's opposition to resuming the war before the US midterm elections stopped it.

The Israeli military's account

Sources in the Israeli military told the Jerusalem Post that the army had no plan for an attack on 10 October, and that Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz and other government officials had given no order to prepare such an attack. According to these sources, Israel was not on the verge of attacking the Islamic Republic.

Netanyahu's denial comes five days before Israel's parliamentary election on 27 October, in which his relationship with the White House and his policy towards the Islamic Republic are among the main issues.

"The regime must go"

In the same interview, Netanyahu repeated that the Islamic Republic must be removed. He said the regime is paralysed and brought to its knees, but as long as it stays standing it can regain strength, adding that the Islamic Republic still faces problems in building a nuclear weapon. On Wednesday, 21 October, at an army officers' graduation ceremony, he had also said that Trump told him a few days earlier that the US was ready to finish the job, but only together with Israel; remarks that followed his earlier position that Mojtaba Khamenei has again moved towards a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that the US and Israeli militaries have prepared plans for an intensive, roughly three-day campaign against the Islamic Republic after the US midterm elections on 3 November, and that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed it with Netanyahu during his recent visit to Israel. Donald Trump said on 8 October that the US would not attack Iran before the midterm elections.

Netanyahu denied that Trump halted an Israeli strike and said the Islamic Republic must be removed.