Israeli officials are disputing the White House’s claim that President Donald Trump was only informed of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plot to assassinate Hamas leadership in Qatar after the missiles were fired.
Last week, Israel attempted to assassinate the leadership of Hamas as the officials were meeting in Doha to discuss the ceasefire and hostage exchange proposed by Trump. Israel fired about a dozen missiles at the building, killing six people but missing the primary targets.
The White House has said that Trump was not informed by Netanyahu about the attack until the missiles had already been fired. Some sources close to the Trump administration told the press that the White House was frustrated with Netanyahu over the assassination attempt.
However, several Israeli officials are disputing the White House’s version of events. Axios spoke with seven Israeli officials who said Netanyahu told Trump about the assassination plot before it was put into action.
“Trump knew about the strike before the missiles were launched. First, there was a discussion on the political level between Netanyahu and Trump, and afterwards through military channels. Trump didn’t say no,” a senior Israeli official told the outlet.
A second official in Tel Aviv interpreted Trump’s failure to prevent the attack as a green light. “If Trump had wanted to stop it, he could have. In practice, he didn’t,” they said.
The sources said Netanyahu has not publicly disputed the White House’s narrative to preserve the US-Israeli relationship. “On our side, it was decided to help them with that for the sake of the US-Israel relationship,” the official said.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Jerusalem to reaffirm the special US-Israeli relationship. While meeting with Rubio, Netanyahu declared the ties between Washington and Tel Aviv are “as durable as the Western Wall.”
