A report published by The New York Times on Thursday has shed new light on growing strains between the United States and Israel, suggesting the relationship had begun to deteriorate well before reports emerged last month of heated phone conversations between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Citing multiple US officials, the report said Washington alerted Tehran in April that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf had been identified as potential assassination targets by Israel. According to the officials, some within the US administration believed Israel was preparing to carry out the killings in the weeks following the first ceasefire on April 8.
US officials reportedly assessed that Araghchi and Ghalibaf, who had been chosen by Iran to participate in nuclear negotiations with Washington, could have been viewed by Israel as "legitimate targets." The concerns surfaced during a period in which Israel carried out a series of assassinations inside Iran, including that of the late Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
The report further stated that American officials believed Israel intended to strike Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf as he returned to Tehran from Islamabad, Pakistan, on April 12 after holding talks with US Vice President JD Vance. According to the report, US authorities informed Tehran that two Israeli fighter jets had entered Iranian airspace through Iraq and were preparing to target Ghalibaf's aircraft during its return journey.
Iranian authorities immediately relayed the warning to the aircraft, prompting Ghalibaf to make an emergency landing in Mashhad, in northern Iran, instead of continuing on the scheduled route to Tehran, the report said.
The developments outlined in the report suggest that differences between Washington and Tel Aviv over Iran had begun to emerge as early as April, foreshadowing the increasingly divergent approaches the two allies would later adopt following the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The report identifies the US-Iran MoU as the clearest sign of those differing priorities. While Washington has continued to push ahead with the agreement and broader peace negotiations without Israeli participation, Netanyahu has publicly criticised the initiative. Since then, the gap between the two governments' positions has continued to widen.
The divide has also extended to the conflict in southern Lebanon. Trump recently urged Netanyahu to be "more responsible" and warned that "too many people have been killed," yet Israeli military operations have continued.
Behind closed doors, the relationship has reportedly been even more strained. According to reports citing leaked phone conversations, Trump referred to Netanyahu as "f***** crazy" during one exchange.
