According to a report by the British ‘Financial Times’ on the 21st, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu originally planned to carry out an air strike against Iran earlier this month. However, U.S. President Trump opposed escalating tensions before the U.S. mid-term elections.
Three people familiar with the matter revealed that the Israel Defense Forces were already prepared to launch an air strike on the weekend of October 10th, targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, regime-related targets, and civilian infrastructure including power plants. The intensity of the planned air strike would be greater than the military strikes carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran in February this year.
However, these sources who declined to be named said that the Israeli plan was not carried out because Trump opposed reliving the conflict before the U.S. midterm elections on November 3rd.
The report indicates that it is still unclear whether the United States originally intended to participate in this airstrike. However, a source familiar with the matter told the newspaper that reinitiating military strikes in the coming weeks “is not an unreasonable assumption”.
A source said that Israel has drawn up a new list of targets, including civilian infrastructure that has never been attacked before. Another source stated that the airstrikes planned by the Israel Defense Forces earlier this month may also be part of a negotiation strategy. They also noted that the decision to resume fighting lies with Trump.
《Financial Times》 reports that the US Department of Defense has yet to comment on the matter.
Two days before this report was published, media reports indicated that U.S. Defense Secretary Hagel had made a secret visit to Israel and met with Netanyahu to discuss “regional threats.”
This is not the first time in recent weeks that there have been reports indicating that Netanyahu is pushing for military strikes against Iran.
On October 9th, Trump stated that the United States would not launch attacks against Iran before the midterm elections.
Just a few days before Trump made those statements, there were reports that Lieutenant General Eyal Zaimer, the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, had warned American military counterparts that launching attacks against Iran in the coming weeks could lead to the postponement of the Israeli elections scheduled for next week.
According to reports, Israel believes that if the United States launches an attack on Iran, Iran will respond by launching large-scale missiles at Israel.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported last week that Netanyahu urged Trump to resume military actions against Iran before the Israeli elections on October 27 and the U.S. midterm elections on November 3.
