EXCLUSIVE: Israel Privately Pressing U.S. to Kill Iran’s Lead Negotiator and Launch New Strikes
Israeli officials are pushing the Trump administration to abandon peace talks, assassinate a senior Iranian negotiator, and resume a war they believe could still produce regime change.
Israel is privately lobbying the Department of War to assassinate Iran’s lead negotiator, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and restart the war with a new round of strikes targeting the country’s oil infrastructure, according to a classified report circulating within the U.S. intelligence community this week.
Israeli officials are aggressively trying to pull the U.S. away from negotiations and back into war, arguing to senior Trump administration officials that another round of strikes against Iran’s oil infrastructure will generate enough economic devastation and unrest to trigger regime change in Tehran, U.S. sources directly familiar with the assessment told Capital & Empire.
Even while making that argument, Israeli officials have simultaneously downplayed the likely impact renewed war would have on global energy markets, insisting internally that Iranian retaliation against Gulf states and regional infrastructure would remain economically manageable.
As part of its pitch to the Department of War, Israel identified the senior Iranian official it would target in a renewed campaign: Ghalibaf, a central figure in ceasefire talks with the U.S. The internal report determined that Israel would not target Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi or Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, as his whereabouts remain unknown to Israeli intelligence.
Israel has repeatedly assassinated political and military figures involved in ongoing diplomatic talks across the region. It has also killed their family members. In 2024, Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran while he was serving as one of the central figures involved in Gaza ceasefire negotiations.
Though Israel is urging the U.S. to abandon peace talks with Iran, the internal report acknowledged that it is remaining deferential to Washington, citing Israel’s October national election and its reliance on continued U.S. military support and coordination. Beyond murdering Ghalibaf, Israel’s plan in the case of renewed war focuses on targeting low-level IRGC officials, establishing air superiority, and suppressing Iranian missile sites.
The Israeli push for a new round of strikes comes as the Trump administration faces mounting pressure to strike an agreement with Iran to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, after its closure upended energy markets and threatened the global economy.
U.S. and Iranian negotiators have developed a preliminary framework that would extend the current ceasefire while opening discussions over releasing frozen Iranian assets and restoring commercial traffic through the Strait. Iranian officials, for their part, have proposed a framework that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for ending the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, releasing frozen Iranian assets, compensating Iran for wartime damages, and recognizing its nuclear enrichment rights, as Drop Site reported last week. Under Tehran’s proposal, the war itself would formally end before negotiations over the nuclear program proceed.
Fars News Agency, an outlet close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported that Trump could soon announce a preliminary deal — a move some Iranian officials say is an effort to politically lock in negotiations before remaining disputes are resolved.
Israeli officials have reacted to the prospect of a diplomatic settlement with near panic, warning in anonymous interviews that a deal could allow Iran to emerge from the war politically strengthened while sharply reducing the chances of regime change in the country.
In interviews with Al-Monitor published Wednesday, Israeli officials said that a deal could allow Iran to emerge from the war “victorious” while restoring Tehran’s regional influence and economic position. One senior Israeli security source told the outlet that reopening the Strait of Hormuz under a negotiated settlement would hand Iran power “whose significance can’t be overstated,” allowing Tehran to exert leverage over global trade and regional energy flows.
Other Israeli officials complained that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been increasingly sidelined by Trump as negotiations advance.
“We went with Trump [to attack Iran] and got almost everything we wanted from him, but Trump is the one who makes the decisions,” one Israeli source familiar with the relationship between the two governments told Al-Monitor.
The Israeli pressure campaign for more war has been reinforced by a broader pro-Israel escalation bloc inside Washington, including Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Roger Wicker, the pro-Israel think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and conservative commentator Mark Levin, all of whom have publicly attacked the negotiations.
Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, described the “rumored 60-day ceasefire” as a “disaster” in a post on social media, warning that “everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!”
Cruz, one of the Senate’s most aggressive Iran hawks, said he was “deeply concerned” by reports about the emerging deal.
“If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime – still run by Islamists who chant ‘death to America’ – now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake,” Cruz said.
The backlash to negotiations is also spreading through the Democratic establishment. During a CNN interview this week, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman and former DNC chair, attacked the negotiations over the possible release of frozen Iranian assets, arguing that a deal would allow Iran to rebuild its regional influence.
Despite the public rhetoric coming from Washington and Tel Aviv, the war has not produced the decisive collapse Israeli and American officials promised. Iran maintains substantial missile capabilities and still controls the Strait of Hormuz. American gas prices are soaring.
Iran survived — and Israel is begging the U.S. to do it all over again.