People hold an anti-presidential banner against Donald Trump while mourners gather before the funeral procession of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and members of his family prior to his burial at the Imam Reza Shrine, the most revered place of worship in Iran, in Mashhad, on July 9, 2026. (Photo: AFP)
Israel has passed intelligence to Washington indicating that Iran is preparing a new plan to assassinate Donald Trump, the Wall Street Journal and CNN reported Thursday, citing anonymous sources. The two U.S. media outlets provided few details. According to one source cited by CNN, the alert reached U.S. officials this week. Another source told the network that the Israelis had confirmed a new Iranian plot that had already been partially detected by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Asked by AFP, the White House did not deny the report, simply pointing to statements by Donald Trump from a press conference at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday. While touting his nation’s military capability in wiping out Iranian forces and killing most of Tehran’s senior leadership, he admitted that he too could be taken out.
“They had leaders, they’re gone, and they had another set of leaders, they’re gone. Now they have another set of leaders; they may be gone. Who knows? And you know what, I may be gone too, because I’m their number one target,” he said.
"I’m the number one, because they’re scum. That’s the way they act, and that’s the way they’ve done it for 47 years, but I’m doing what’s right for the country; I’m doing what’s right for the world."
Trump left the NATO summit in Turkey using the former presidential plane, and not the new one provided by Qatar, due to security concerns, according to the New York Times.
Convincing Trump to continue bombing Iran
These leaks about a new plot come at a time when relations between Israel and the United States and their two leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, are allegedly strained over their joint war against Iran.
The United States is Israel’s main ally, but the U.S. president has repeatedly publicly criticized Netanyahu in recent weeks, after Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon threatened ongoing U.S. talks with Iran. U.S. sources cited by CNN believe that sharing Israeli intelligence with Washington could be an effort by Netanyahu’s government to convince Donald Trump to keep bombing Iran, airstrikes that resumed this week.
Trump spoke Thursday night with Benjamin Netanyahu to inform him of "the latest American movements" in the Gulf, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced. The conversation took place "as part of the regular contacts" between the two leaders, who on this occasion reaffirmed "the continuation of coordination between their countries in various fields," according to a statement from the prime minister’s office released on X.
"For his part, Netanyahu emphasized the seriousness of remarks made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his associates against the existence of the State of Israel, as well as the need to establish security zones along Israel’s borders," the statement added. A U.S. official confirmed to AFP that the call took place but provided no details about its content. Netanyahu’s office said earlier in July that the two leaders had agreed to meet "soon" in the United States.
The United States killed powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020, during Trump's first term, and Iran publicly threatened reprisals, including against Donald Trump. Iran has just buried its late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, killed in a U.S.-Israeli strike at the end of February at the very beginning of their war, after several days of funerals marked by a desire for revenge.
Back-channel diplomacy, but Washington remains ready to strike
Despite rising tensions in the Gulf, U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity told CNN that diplomacy continues "behind the scenes" between the United States and Iran, and that Washington is "deliberately alternating between strikes and periods of calm to avoid escalation." However, the U.S. administration remains ready for new strikes and has drawn up a list of potential targets on Iranian territory to maintain its leverage, according to these officials. They emphasized that preparations are underway for new military operations, including loading fighter jets with munitions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.
According to Al Jazeera, "technical discussions" continue between Washington and Tehran, and mediating countries are working to get diplomacy back on track, while Axios reports that Qatar, Pakistan, and other regional mediators "are striving to ease tensions and restart negotiations." The mediators believe previous discussions had "led to progress toward a nuclear agreement" and do not want to lose that momentum. As part of these efforts, Qatari, Pakistani, Turkish, Egyptian, and Saudi officials held multiple calls Wednesday with U.S. and Iranian officials to defuse the crisis, according to U.S. media sources.
A regional source in one of the mediating countries also accused factions within the regime that oppose the Iran-U.S. memorandum of having carried out the attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which triggered the escalation.
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