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Netanyahu said to agree to delay strikes on Iran after Trump urges against retaliation
Netanyahu said to agree to delay strikes on Iran after Trump urges against retaliation
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly agreed to a request by US President Donald Trump to hold off on retaliating against Iran’s ballistic missile attacks to give Washington several more days to pursue a diplomatic agreement with Tehran.
According to the Axios news site, citing a senior US official and a senior Israeli official, Trump requested during their phone call tonight that Netanyahu hold off on retaliating against the attacks, believing “we are close to doing something good in terms of a deal,” the US official said.
Netanyahu tried to push back and persuade Trump to allow Israel to strike Iran, but ultimately “pseudo-agreed” to the president’s request, according to the US official.
The official describes the conversation as much calmer than the heated exchange between the leaders over Israeli plans to strike Beirut last week – during which Trump publicly acknowledged cursing and yelling at Netanyahu – saying that the president did not raise his voice during tonight’s call.
Following the call, “we think the president bought a little bit of time. He is pretty adamant that we are close to a deal with Iran. I don’t think anything is imminent in terms of an Israeli strike,” the US official adds, saying: “We are in a moment in time — that why jeopardize a potential deal when you are in the fourth quarter. The president thinks that we have been in this thing for three months — now is the time to end this thing.”
No formal decision has been made in Israel, and as of half an hour ago, Netanyahu was still meeting with senior security officials on the issue, Channel 12 news reports.
In a separate report, two US officials tell Channel 12 that the White House never gave a “green light” to the Israeli strikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut this morning, which prompted the Iranian attacks, with one of them saying, “we had no part in this.”
A Saudi report claimed earlier today that Israel had updated Washington ahead of the strikes.
