Two Israeli Embassy staff members were shot and killed by a gunman who later yelled “Free Palestine!” while being arrested in Washington, DC, Wednesday night, authorities said.
The slain staffers, who the Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs named as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were a couple who officials say were soon to be engaged.
The two were attending an event for young professionals at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. At around 9 p.m. outside the museum, they were approached by a gunman who opened fire and killed them, officials said.
The suspect, whom DC police identified as 30-year-old Chicago native Elias Rodriguez, pretended to be a bystander after the shooting, an eyewitness told CNN News.
When police arrived, the man turned himself in and shouted “Free, Free Palestine” while being handcuffed. He is currently in custody, according to authorities. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said the man “implied that he committed the offense.”
What we know about the shooting near the Capital Jewish Museum
Two Israeli Embassy staff members were killed in a shooting near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night.
Sources: CNN reporting, District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, Google (image) Graphic: Lou Robinson, CNN
The shooting, which took place in the heart of the Hill, has shaken the Jewish community at a time of heightened global tensions, as US-led attempts to broker a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas remain unsuccessful and fighting in Gaza continues.
Tensions are also high across US college campuses where hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters have been arrested amid polarized debates over the right to protest Israel’s military actions and accusations of antisemitism.
“We’ll be doing everything in our power to keep all citizens safe, especially tonight our Jewish community,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters late Wednesday.
“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA,” President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social, expressing his condolences to the families of the victims.
Rodriguez is being interviewed by the DC Metropolitan Police and FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino said on X.
“Early indicators are that this is an act of targeted violence,” Bongino said.
Ted Deutch, the CEO of the AJC, described the shooting “an unspeaking act of violence.”
“At this moment, as we await more information from the police about exactly what transpired, our attention and our hearts are solely with those who were harmed and their families,” he said.
Suspect was seen ‘pacing’ outside museum before shooting
Police Chief Smith said Rodriguez was allegedly seen pacing back and forth outside the museum before approaching a group of four and shooting two of them with a handgun.
The 30-year-old later retreated inside the museum, where he was eventually detained, according to Smith.
According to Sara Marinuzzi, an eyewitness who spoke with WTTG, the suspect “pretended to be a witness” once inside the building and waited for police to arrive for over 10 minutes before claiming responsibility for the attack.
Police officers work at the site of the shooting. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Another witness, Paige Siegel, told WTTG she heard Rodriguez say, “I did it for Gaza,” and “Free Palestine.”
Rodriguez, who was taken into custody on Wednesday night told officers, “I did this,” according to eyewitness Yoni Kalin.
Kalin was at the museum attending the same event organized by the AJC when he heard shots rang out. “At first I didn’t recognize them as gunshots,” he told CNN News over the phone.
Moments later, a man entered the museum appearing to be a witness, according to Kalin. He recalled the man sitting in the museum but not interacting with many people present at the event. Ten minutes later, when police entered the building, the man appeared to confess to shooting, telling officers, “I did this, I did this for Palestine,” according to Kalin.
“It’s horrible,” Kalin said. “I just didn’t realize he was the perpetrator.”
Kalin added that between the shooting and the arrest, Rodriguez appeared shaken up. People approached the suspect to offer him water and check if he was okay, he said.
Kalin said around 50 people attended the event, which was organized to discuss how multi-faith organizations can work together to bring humanitarian aid to war-torn regions such as Gaza. He added that over 30 staffers from various embassies attended the event.
“I’m still in shock,” Kalin told NBC News. “I just hope we learn from this and just recognize that violence and terrorism doesn’t get us where we need to be” he added.
Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter and US Attorney General Pam Bondi visit the site of the shooting. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
The couple ‘were in the prime of their lives’
When officers arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting, they found “one adult male and one adult female unconscious and not breathing,” Smith told reporters late Wednesday. “Both victims succumbed to their injuries,” she said.
“We are shocked and horrified this morning by the news of the brutal terrorist attack that claimed the lives of two of our Embassy staff members in Washington,” the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a post on X in the early hours of Thursday.
“We embrace the grieving families during this painful time and will continue to support them always,” the post read.
“Yaron and Sarah were our friends and colleagues. They were in the prime of their lives,” Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, also said in a social media post Thursday. “The entire embassy staff is heartbroken and devastated by their murder. No words can express the depth of our grief and horror at this devastating loss.” Leiter earlier shared with reporters that the couple was about to be engaged.
“A young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem. They were a beautiful couple,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement, expressed his condolences to the families of the young couple.
“My heart aches for the families of the beloved young man and woman, whose lives were suddenly cut short by a vile antisemitic murderer,” Netanyahu said.
In Saudi Arabia, he received a standing ovation from business elites as he announced the lifting of sanctions on Syria.
In Qatar, he took home an investment pledge of billions of dollars in American goods and services.
In the United Arab Emirates, he was awarded the country’s highest civilian honor.
If President Trump has been dogged at home by backlash over his tariff policies, protests over his immigration crackdown and questions over his ethics, a week in the Arabian Peninsula produced nothing but wins for the president.
“The last four days have been really amazing,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday, as he was leaving a palace in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where he had just been feted. He added, looking rueful, “Probably going back to Washington, D.C., tomorrow.”
On Friday, the president reflected on his trip on Air Force One: “The respect shown to our country was incredible. Nobody’s treated like that. Nobody’s treated well like that.”
At every step of Mr. Trump’s whirlwind tour of the Middle East, he was treated with the kind of honor and respect he has long desired. Escorts of fighter jets. Extravagant welcoming ceremonies. Red and lavender carpets. Arabian horses. Glitzy chandeliers. Camels. Sword dancers. White marble palaces. In the United Arab Emirate of Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, lit up with an image of the American flag. All in his honor.
“As a construction person, I’m seeing perfect marble. This is what they call perfecto,” Mr. Trump said at one point, admiring the royal court in Doha, the capital of Qatar. “We appreciate those camels. I haven’t seen camels like that in a long time.”
President Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meet with officials during a traditional welcome ceremony at the royal court in Riyadh, the capital, on Tuesday. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)
Such a welcome would have been unlikely in most other corners of the world, where governments, including the United States’ closest allies, are reeling from Mr. Trump’s aggressive tariffs and bellicose rhetoric toward Canada, Greenland and Panama.
But in the gulf, Mr. Trump’s every move was lauded.
Mr. Trump was able to announce what he said was more than $2 trillion in economic investments between the United States and the three nations he visited: Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, each longtime purchasers of American military equipment.
Mr. Trump said that the investments from those three nations could reach as high as $4 trillion — roughly the size of all their sovereign wealth funds combined. While much of that total comes in the form of long-term pledges that may or may not materialize and counts some deals that were already underway, leaders of the gulf nations were all too happy to supply Mr. Trump with the eye-popping figures.
At a business event in Abu Dhabi on Friday, Mr. Trump was treated to a tour of deals underway between American and Emirati companies, including purchases of Boeing jets and G.E. engines.
Mr. Trump marveled at the wealth of his hosts, who can pay upfront for whatever deals they undertake.
“They don’t say ‘subject to financing,’” Mr. Trump said. “They have no problem.”
At each step of the trip, Mr. Trump surrounded himself with friendly audiences and often turned his events — such as a stop at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East — into campaign-style rallies: blasting his favorite playlists (“Gloria,” of course), bashing Democrats and falsely claiming he had won the 2020 election.
President Trump spoke to American troops at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East. He was greeted with chants of “U.S.A.” (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
Speaking to American troops as their commander in chief, he was greeted with chants of “U.S.A.”
“We won three elections, OK? And some people want us to do a fourth. I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it,” Mr. Trump told the troops, yet again floating the idea of an unconstitutional third term in office. “The hottest hat is, it says, ‘Trump 2028.’ We’re driving the left crazy.”
If Mr. Trump hoped to avoid controversy about his family’s business dealings in the region, the gulf leaders helped with just that — highlighting deals with private firms that are unrelated to Mr. Trump’s personal business interests. There was no visit to the site of the Trump Organization’s deal with a Saudi real estate company to build a residential high-rise in Jeddah; no presentation of a $400 million luxury jet that Mr. Trump is seeking as a gift from Qatar; and no promotion of the Abu Dhabi-backed fund that is making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.
On Air Force One, taking questions from reporters, Mr. Trump denied knowledge of the crypto deal.
“I really don’t know anything about it,” he said. “But I’m a big crypto fan, I will tell you.”
If a Democratic president did what Mr. Trump has done — praising a former jihadist, welcoming Qatar’s friendship with Iran and accepting a “gift” of a $400 million airplane — Republicans would have been howling in protest and ordering up congressional investigations. What transpired, instead, was mostly an uncomfortable silence.
A few Trump allies, like Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and the far-right activist Laura Loomer, made clear they did not like the plane gift, but contorted themselves to express their discomfort in ways that would be least likely to offend Mr. Trump. Ms. Loomer preceded her criticism by saying she would “take a bullet” for the president, and Mr. Hawley avoided the implication of corruption and simply said he would prefer “if Air Force One were a big, beautiful jet made in the United States of America — that would be ideal.”
Mr. Trump’s declaration that the United States was shifting its policy toward the Middle East away from judgment and confrontation toward peace and profit was praised repeatedly.
US President Donald Trump, left, shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a bilateral meeting in Riyadh on May 13, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP)
“It’s crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists or flying people in beautiful planes, giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs,” Mr. Trump said at a gathering of Saudi royalty and business elites in Riyadh.
Even back home in the United States, Democrats and Republicans approved of Mr. Trump’s announcement that he was removing sanctions from Syria in an effort to give the war-torn country a fresh start.
“We commend President Trump’s decision to lift all sanctions on Syria,” the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho; and Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, said in a joint statement.
The trip was intended to deliver a series of economic, diplomatic and public relations wins for the countries involved, said Andrew Leber, an assistant professor at Tulane University in Louisiana, who focuses on the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
A military jet formation over Air Force One after President Trump delivered remarks to troops at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha on Thursday. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
Saudi Arabia got the opportunity to highlight the changing nature of its society and economy, and present itself as a leader in global affairs, both in terms of business opportunities and diplomacy. Mr. Trump got a trip that essentially could not go wrong for him, Mr. Leber said.
“This was the one place that’s guaranteed to give him a very enthusiastic, warm and tightly controlled welcome,” Mr. Leber added. “If he went anywhere in Latin America, there would be protests. If he went anywhere in Europe, there would be protests. This is a place that’s going to speak with him and deal with him on very transactional terms, that’s going to put on a big show and where there’s not going to be any domestic protests whatsoever.”
That was indeed the case, as gulf leaders adopted Mr. Trump’s favorite phrases. Each nation talked about their trade deficits with the United States and how they buy more from the United States than they sell — a favorite topic of the president’s.
At a business forum in Saudi Arabia, panelists talked of “making aviation great again,” playing off Mr. Trump’s campaign theme.
At the meeting in Abu Dhabi on Friday, Mr. Trump walked into a large rotunda where five large screens showed various kinds of investment — starting with “Making Energy Great Again.” There, he was gifted a box containing a drop of oil.
In Doha, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, adopted Mr. Trump’s energy slogan, “Drill, baby, drill.”
“The U.S. and Qatar are feeding and fueling the world,” the emir said, before turning to Mr. Trump. “Glad to have you back on board.”
President Trump with Emirati President, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, at the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi, on Thursday. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
Mr. Trump is also a relief for gulf leaders: They now have a U.S. president who breezes past their human rights records as he chases high-dollar deals.
“Governments and publics throughout the gulf like Trump a lot,” said Jon B. Alterman, a global security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“They feel Western liberals want to shame them on their domestic issues, everything from L.G.B.T. rights to abuse of migrant workers,” Mr. Alterman added. “While there certainly are rising liberal voices in the gulf, most people there see Trump as a common-sense, like-minded leader.”
As he ended his trip in Abu Dhabi on Friday, Mr. Trump worried aloud to the news media that whoever becomes president after him would get credit for the deals once they reach fruition.
“I’ll be sitting home, who the hell knows where I’ll be, and I’ll say, ‘I did that,’” he said. “Somebody’s going to be taking the credit for this. You remember, press,” he said, pointing to himself, “this guy did it.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press on board Air Force One en route to Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
President Trump announced in a speech in Saudi Arabia that he is lifting U.S. sanctions on Syria “to give them a chance.”
Why it matters: Trump’s announcement is a dramatic shift in U.S. policy towards Syria less than six months after the collapse of the Assad regime. The sanctions crippled the Syrian economy and brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy.
Trump is also expected to meet with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in Riyadh on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the plan.
Assad’s son, Bashar al-Assad, was toppled in December in a lightning rebel offensive that brought al-Sharaa to power after 14 years of devastating civil war.
What they’re saying: Trump said he hopes the new Syrian government manages to stabilize the country and keep the peace and stressed he will continue the process of normalization of U.S.-Syrian relations.
“After discussing the situation in Syria with the Crown Prince [Mohammed bin Salman] and also with President Erdogan of Turkey, who called me the other day and asked for a very similar thing … I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump said with the crowd bursting into a standing ovation.
Trump said the sanctions were “brutal and crippling” and served a purpose at the time, but are no longer needed.
“Now it is their time to shine. We are taking them all off. Good luck Syria. Show us something very special,” he said.
Driving the news: When asked by reporters Tuesday if he expects to meet with al-Sharaa during his visit to Saudi Arabia Trump replied: “Yes, I think so.”
“The president agreed to say hello to the Syrian president while in Saudi Arabia tomorrow,” a White House official told The Budgets.
The extraordinary planned meeting between Trump and al-Sharaa — who remains on the U.S. terrorist list due to his past ties with al-Qaeda and ISIS — would mark the first meeting between a U.S. and Syrian president in 25 years.
The last such meeting took place in 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton met with then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in Geneva as part of efforts to broker an Israeli-Syrian peace deal.
Trump also said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet later this week in Turkey with the Syrian foreign minister.
The big picture: Trump’s new announcement marks a shift in the administration’s policy toward the new Syrian government, which is struggling to rebuild the country under the weight of U.S. sanctions.
In his first few weeks in office, Trump referred to al-Sharaa as “a Jihadi” when speaking with foreign leaders, a source with direct knowledge said.
One of Trump’s stated goals is to fully withdraw all remaining U.S. troops from Syria — a process he started in recent weeks.
A meeting and potential coordination with the Syrian president could accelerate that process.
Behind the scenes: Two sources with knowledge of the issue said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, along with several countries, including Turkey, Qatar and France, urged Trump to hold the meeting on the sidelines of his summit with Gulf leaders in Riyadh on Wednesday.
State of play: Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at the Middle East Institute, told Axios that the meeting could be a make-or-break moment for a country that urgently needs U.S. engagement and sanctions relief.
“If President Trump wants to bring peace to the Middle East, the departure of Assad’s regime and the near-defeat of Iran in the Levant presents him a historic opportunity — but Damascus will be central to whether that succeeds or fails,” Lister said.
“A Syrian olive branch has been extended for several months; it’s up to Trump whether that’s grasped or not.”
Mouaz Moustafa, the director of the Washington-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, briefed White House officials after meeting with al-Sharaa in Damascus for four hours several days ago.
He told Axios al-Sharaa wants to meet Trump and present his vision for the country, and that he expressedstrong interest in partnering with the U.S. on Syria’s energy sector — including a proposal to allow a U.S. entity to manage Syria’s oil and gas fields.
Al-Sharaa emphasized his commitment to preventing Iranian reentry into Syria and continuing close cooperation with the U.S. on counterterrorism efforts, including the handling of ISIS prisoners, Moustafa added.
Between the lines: The meeting with al-Sharaa and the lifting of U.S. sanctions is another instance of Trump defying Israel’s preferred policy, after the U.S. engaged with direct talks with Iran and negotiated a ceasefire with the Houthis.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is deeply skeptical towards the new Syrian government due to al-Sharaa and his advisers’ past affiliation with al-Qaeda.
Israel took over territory inside Syria to create a buffer zone after the collapse of the Assad regime, and has been conducting air strikes on Syrian military bases and weapons depot.
Young Palestinians pass destroyed buildings Monday in Khan Younis, Gaza. (Abed Rahim Khatib / Anadolu/Getty Images)
Israel has unveiled a startling new plan for escalating its domination of the Gaza Strip that all but openly declares an ethnic cleansing agenda meant to permanently alter life and demography in the enclave. The signs that things were headed in this dark direction have been clear for a while. But Israel can be so plain-spoken in part because President Donald Trump is not just supporting Israel, but also celebrating neocolonialism as a legitimate foreign policy goal.
NBC News reported that Israel’s security Cabinet has “unanimously approved a plan to seize all of the Gaza Strip in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would be an intensive military operation aimed at defeating Hamas.” The Israeli army is calling up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers for the effort. Netanyahu said the plan to take over the territory means the Israeli military will no longer “enter and then exit” from combat zones but do the “opposite” — indefinitely control any territory it seizes. And the plan calls for a mass displacement of Gaza’s Palestinian population to the southern part of the territory. BBC News reportedthat far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that “an Israeli victory in Gaza would see the territory ‘entirely destroyed’ and its residents ‘concentrated’ in the south, from where they would ‘start to leave in great numbers to third countries.’” Smotrich and his colleague Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have in the past also called for new Israeli settlements in Gaza.
This is an all-out assault on human rights and the concept of self-determination.
Alongside those plans, Israel’s security Cabinet approved a plan to change the way international aid flows into Gaza, which would involve Israel wresting control of the distribution of aid from international organizations. Under the new policy, aid would be distributed through designated hubs that would, according to The Washington Post, only distribute a tenth of what Israel did during the ceasefire, would be protected by American security contractors and would use facial recognition screening. The United Nations rejected that plan as “dangerous” and described it as “designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic — as part of a military strategy.” Currently, Gaza is in the midst of its third month of a total Israeli blockade of food, fuel and medicine — and the plan to reopen (insufficient) humanitarian aid is only meant to take effect after the population is herded to the south.
Israel’s retaliation against Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, war crimes has been going on for so long and with such intensity that its conduct may have begun to feel normal to many. But it must be said that this is the stuff of nightmares. This is an all-out assault on human rights and the concept of self-determination, and the U.S. cannot claim credibility on those matters either while supporting it.
Israeli officials say there is a “window of opportunity” for a new ceasefire deal during Trump’s visit to the Middle East next week that could forestall the occupation plan, but there’s little reason to be optimistic given Netanyahu’s decision to unilaterally renege on the last one. Hamas has also said that there was “no point” to negotiations while the blockade remained in place.
Israel’s starvation and bombardment regime — which many human rights organizations, human rights experts and genocide scholars have described as genocidal — has long telegraphed an agenda to render Gaza uninhabitable and force one of two outcomes: death or displacement. But this plan of calling up reservists for indefinite occupation is new. I asked Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington D.C., whether Gaza is entering a categorically new phase since Israel began its response to the Oct. 7 attacks.
“It is and isn’t. In some ways it is, because now you have the Israeli government and the security Cabinet within the Israeli government formally adopting this as a plan and making very clear their intentions to the public,” Munayyer said. “But I would also argue that this has been the intention all along, if you judge them by their actions and their lack of willingness to articulate a vision for Gaza that was different than this.”
In other words, Israel is feeling more empowered to be forthright about its endgame of making Gaza uninhabitable for Palestinians.
Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin, told me Israel has gotten here by constantly pushing the boundaries of how it can mistreat the Palestinians since Hamas’ attacks and seeing what happens. “Israel has been consistently testing the waters of what it could get away with, whether impunity is still in place,” Levy wrote in an email. “Each time the answer comes back that there is no meaningful pressure.” Each subsequent move, he wrote, “brings into sharper focus the prospect of mass displacement or mass ethnic cleansing.”
The permissiveness began under President Joe Biden, who offered unconditional support for Israel as it began its brutalization of Gaza and offered only modest public criticism and a one-off suspension of one shipment of munitions to Israel as it leveled the territory. It’s unclear how Biden would have reacted to these latest plans — if that “red line” that never emerged under his watch would have finally made an appearance.
The situation is ripe for a bigger, more permanent Israeli presence in Gaza than its pre-2005 settlements in the enclave.“The International arena is different in terms of a U.S. and Western zeitgeist, which is far more indulgent of aggressive and excessive Israeli actions,” Levy wrote in that email. “Israeli society is in some ways more divided, but in others, more unified in its willingness to support extreme and genocidal measures against Palestinians.”
“Things are far more fluid than in the past, with a far more zero-sum mindset guiding policy,” he added.
Munayyer and Levy noted that Trump’s own language has likely emboldened Israel to be blunter and more aggressive. Specifically, Trump’s idea to transform Gaza to create a Middle Eastern “Riviera” there, populated by “international people.” Trump’s erasure of Palestinians and fantasy of a new population dovetails with the right-wing segment of the Israeli government who want to annex Gaza. As Trump talks about taking control of the Panama Canal and Greenland and tries to undercut Ukraine’s position in peace negotiations with Russia, Israel may be wagering that it has a rare window of impunity for territorial control and possible annexation. Unfortunately, that calculation may be sound.
A new documentary about the 2022 killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh claims to have identified the Israeli soldier who fired the fatal shot.
Additionally, the film alleges that while the Biden administration had initially concluded an Israeli soldier intentionally shot at Abu Akleh, despite the fact she was identifiable as media, it publicly declared that there was “no reason to believe” her killing was “intentional.”
The documentary, produced by independent news outlet Zeteo and titled “Who Killed Shireen?,” follows former Wall Street Journal Middle East reporter Dion Nissenbaum and longtime foreign correspondent Conor Powell as they and fellow journalists seek to figure out who killed Abu Akleh and how the Biden administration handled the investigation into her killing.
Abu Akleh, a Palestinian journalist with US citizenship, was a well-known and respected correspondent for Al Jazeera. She was shot while covering an Israeli military operation targeting militants in Jenin in May 2022. When she was killed, she was wearing protective gear identifying her as a member of the press.
In the immediate aftermath of her death, Israeli officials suggested crossfire from Palestinian militants fighting with Israeli soldiers nearby could have been to blame. Shortly thereafter, however, investigations by CNN and other outlets found that the only militants in the area could not have reached Abu Akleh from where they stood when she was killed. CNN further concluded that she was killed in a targeted attack, based on eyewitness statements and analysis from audio forensic and explosive weapons experts.
The Israel Defense Forces eventually said there was a “high possibility” Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli fire, but said they would not charge any soldiers as there “was no suspicion that a bullet was fired deliberately” at anyone identified as a journalist and the soldier thought he was shooting at militants who were firing upon him. An Israeli military spokesperson later apologized for the journalist’s death and said the soldier responsible “did not do this on purpose.”
But one subject interviewed for the documentary, identified only as a “key Biden administration official,” says that based on where the soldiers and the reporters were located at the time, “it was an indication that it was an intentional killing” and that the soldier would have been able to clearly see Abu Akleh was a noncombatant.
“Whether or not they knew it was her or not, can very well be debated, but they would have absolutely known that it was a media person or a noncombatant at a minimum,” the anonymous Biden administration official states. “Absolutely knew that it was non-combatant, and every indication was that it was media. It was clear within all optics from that distance and location and the visual capabilities of that day.”
The documentary does not detail how the official knows this information, although a source close to the documentary told CNN the official had “direct knowledge” of the Biden administration’s internal assessments of Abu Akleh’s death.
As for who fired the fatal shots, an unidentified Israeli soldier interviewed in the documentary, who said he served alongside the soldier responsible for the slaying, identified the soldier by name and said he was a member of an elite commando unit called Duvdevan. (Because CNN has not been able to verify the reporting, we are not naming the soldier.)
“When you open the corner and you have this second to take a decision, to take a shot and you see someone who hold a camera or something that, you know, point at you, you don’t need more than that to shoot the bullet,” the anonymous soldier says in the documentary.
The soldier identified as Abu Akleh’s killer “wasn’t happy” to discover he killed a journalist, the fellow soldier says, but “he wasn’t like, you know, eating himself from the inside, like thinking about, ‘Oh, what have I done,’ or something like that.”
Abu Akleh’s alleged shooter was later killed by an explosive device buried in the road during a June 2024 military operation in Jenin, the documentary notes. His family has said in interviews with Israeli media that he died while rescuing military medics, who’d been injured by a separate explosion allegedly planted by Palestinian militants.
Reached for comment, the IDF said “Zeteo has decided to publish the name of the IDF soldier who fell during an operational activity, despite the family’s request not to publish the name, and even though they were told that there is no definitive determination regarding the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting that caused the journalist’s death. The IDF shares in the family’s grief and continues to support them.”
A State Department investigation into Abu Akleh’s death, released in July 2022, found that the IDF was “likely responsible” for the shooting, but that there was “no reason to believe” the soldier intentionally targeted her.
However, the unidentified Biden administration official alleges in the documentary that despite those findings, the administration’s assessment was ultimately publicly presented as the shooting having been “a tragic accident versus being an intentional killing of the individual.” He alleges the alteration was made because of “pressure within the administration to not try and anger the government of Israel too much by trying to force their hand at saying that they’d intentionally killed a US citizen.”
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Justice, which was reportedly working on its own investigation, declined to comment.
Since Abu Akleh’s death, the situation on the ground in the region for reporters has changed dramatically. In May 2024, Al Jazeera was officially banned from Israel and the West Bank, with its offices in Ramallah at one point sealed shut by the IDF.
In Gaza, press watchdog groups say at least 175 reporters, photographers, producers and other journalists have been killed since Israel began its military campaign following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
In some cases, Israel has claimed that the journalists killed were working with militant groups. Nevertheless, the war in Gaza has become the deadliest conflict on record for members of the media.
In the documentary, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who has long advocated for more accountability following Abu Akleh’s death, said he believes “if the US had been more effective and more forceful in insisting that the rules of engagement changed after the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh,” then further civilian deaths could have been avoided.
Abu Akleh’s family echoed that sentiment in a statement to CNN: “Our calls for justice have never been about one individual soldier, but rather for the entire chain of command—those who gave the orders, those who covered it up, and those who continue to deny responsibility — be held to account for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, 2022 . Only then can there be any hope for real closure, not just for Shireen, but for every journalist and family seeking truth.
“Regardless if the soldier’s identity is known or whether he is dead or alive doesn’t change the fact that Shireen was intentionally targeted and killed, and that happened within a system that enables impunity.”
In a new test for its singularly American brand, the Walt Disney Company said on Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with the Miral Group, an arm of the Abu Dhabi government, to build a theme park resort on the Persian Gulf. The property, the seventh in Disney’s global portfolio, will have a castle and modernized versions of some classic Disney rides, along with new attractions tailored to the climate and local culture.
“It’s not just about ‘If you build it, they will come,’” Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said in a brief phone interview from Abu Dhabi. “You have to build it right. And quality means not just scale, but quality and ambition. We are planning to be very ambitious with this.”
Disney and Miral declined to give acreage, budget or construction timeline details for what they are calling Disneyland Abu Dhabi, except to say it will be a full-scale property on a par with Disney’s other “castle” parks. Miral is footing the entire bill for building the park. (New theme parks of this scale typically cost $5 billion or more.)
Arab leaders have long courted Disney, which expanded its theme park business to Japan in 1983, France in 1992, Hong Kong in 2005 and the Chinese mainland in 2016. At a Council on Foreign Relations event in 2018, Mr. Iger said the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had made an “impassioned plea” for Disney to build a theme park in his kingdom.
“I explained when we make decisions like this we consider cultural issues, economic issues and political issues,” Mr. Iger said then, declining to give further details of their “very frank” discussion. The region, he added at the time, “has not been at the top of our list in terms of markets that we would open up in.”
What changed?
For a start, the United Arab Emirates has grown into a tourist destination. Abu Dhabi, the capital, attracted roughly 24 million visitors in 2023, according to government figures. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the country’s president, has set a goal of attracting 39 million visitors annually to Abu Dhabi by 2030. The Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017, has been a hit. Warner Bros. Discovery opened a modest indoor theme park in the city in 2018, and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi arrived in 2023.
The Miral Group, which built Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, made Disney a hard-to-refuse financial offer: In addition to paying for construction, Miral will pay Disney to design the rides, shops, restaurants and accompanying hotels. Once the park is open, Disney will receive royalties for the use of its characters as a percentage of revenue, according to a securities filing. Disney will also receive other fees.
At the same time, Disney has come under pressure to find new areas for growth to offset declines in cable television and at the box office. By opening a theme park in Abu Dhabi, Disney hopes to create an engine that drives demand among the Middle East’s 500 million residents for other Disney products — princess dolls, Disney+ subscriptions, cruise ship vacations, Marvel movies, touring stage productions.
“After studying the region carefully, engaging with potential partners and visiting three times in the past nine months,” Mr. Iger said, “it became more and more clear that not only was the region right and ready for us, but the place to build was Abu Dhabi.”
Disneyland Abu Dhabi could allow Disney to tap into India’s expanding middle class. A direct flight from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi takes 3 hours 17 minutes. Currently, the closest Disney outpost to Mumbai is Hong Kong Disneyland, a six-hour flight away.
“In looking at some research that we’ve done recently, we determined that, for every person visiting one of our parks, there are 10 people in the world that have a desire to visit,” Mr. Iger said. “One of the biggest reasons they don’t — everybody always thinks immediately it’s affordability. It’s not. It’s accessibility. It’s a long trip to get to where we are for a lot of people.”
Aerial view of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, high-rise buildings and some of the emirate’s 200-plus islands. (Getty Images)
There will be obstacles. The climate is one. Disney will need to design a park that allows for visitation in scalding desert heat.
Disney could also face criticism for its partnership with the Emirates, which is ruled as an autocracy with limits to freedom of expression, speech and the press, and which provides arms to fighters accused of atrocities in a devastating civil war in Sudan. In November, Human Rights Watch slammed the National Basketball Association, which has made Abu Dhabi its Middle East hub, for helping the country to distract from its human rights record.
To attract more tourists and foreign investors, the Emirates in 2020 improved protections for women, loosened regulations on alcohol consumption and diminished the role of Islamic legal codes in its justice system. Criticizing the government or its leaders remains illegal, however, and can lead to long prison sentences. Migrant workers are often subject to inhumane conditions, according to human rights groups and the State Department. Homosexuality is illegal.
In 2022, the Emirates joined other Persian Gulf nations in banning “Lightyear,” a major film from Disney’s Pixar, because of a blink-and-you-missed-it kiss between a lesbian couple. “Lightyear,” along with some other content that features L.G.B.T.Q. characters, does not appear on Disney+ in the region.
In a statement, a Disney spokeswoman said, “We are respectful of the countries and cultures where we do business, while always adhering to our own standards and values.”
Disney faced a similar situation when it teamed with the Chinese government to build Shanghai Disneyland. In addition to awkward optics, the construction of that park required the contentious relocation of thousands of suburban Shanghai residents. (Disneyland Abu Dhabi won’t have that headache; it will rise on man-made Yas Island.)
Wall Street, however, is likely to applaud — especially given the troubled state of other Disney businesses, including cable television.
“Are theme parks now the best business in media?” Craig Moffett, a founder of the MoffettNathanson research firm, wrote in a report last year. “The answer is almost certainly ‘yes.’”
The United States and Houthis in Yemen reached a deal to halt American airstrikes against the group after the Iranian-backed militants agreed to cease attacks against American vessels in the Red Sea, President Trump and Omani mediators said Tuesday.
Mr. Trump broke the news of the truce during an unrelated Oval Office meeting with Canada’s prime minister, surprising even his own Pentagon officials.
“They just don’t want to fight,” Mr. Trump said. “And we will honor that and we will stop the bombings. They have capitulated, but more importantly, we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore.”
But despite his claim of success, it remained unclear whether the United States had achieved its objective of stopping the Houthis from impeding international shipping after a costly seven-week bombing campaign.
The Houthis themselves stopped short of declaring a full cease-fire, saying that they would continue to fight Israel. And Houthi officials and supporters swiftly portrayed the deal as a major victory for the militia and a failure for Mr. Trump, spreading a social media hashtag that read “Yemen defeats America.”
For more than a year, the Houthis have been firing projectiles and launching drones at commercial and military ships in the Red Sea in what the militia group has described as a show of solidarity with Gaza residents and with Hamas, the militant group controlling the Palestinian territory.
In mid-March, the United States began striking hundreds of targets to try to reopen international shipping lanes. The campaign has cost well over $1 billion, congressional officials said they learned in closed-door briefings with Pentagon officials last month. The rate of munitions used in the campaign has caused concern among some U.S. military strategists, who are worried it could undermine readiness for a potential conflict with China.
After Mr. Trump unexpectedly broke the news of the deal between the Houthis and the United States, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, said his country had mediated the agreement.
“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” he said in a statement on social media.
For his part, Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, a senior Houthi politician, said that if the United States halted its attacks on Yemen, the Houthis would halt their attacks on a smaller group: “American military fleets and interests.”
However, Mr. Al-Bukhaiti said the Houthis would continue military operations until Israel lifted its siege on Gaza, “no matter the sacrifices, even if we have to fight until Judgment Day.”
His statement left unclear whether the Houthis would stop attacking other vessels in the crucial shipping lane. The Houthis have said that they were targeting only ships with links to Israel or the United States, but the militia has in the past targeted vessels with no obvious link to either. In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, Mr. Al-Bukhaiti did not answer specific questions as to whether the group would continue to attack Israeli-linked ships.
Mahdi al-Mashat, another senior Houthi official, made clear the group intended to retaliate against Israel for its bombing of the main international airport in Yemen on Tuesday. Mr. al-Mashat said the response from the Houthis would be “earth-shattering, painful, and beyond the capability of the Israeli and American enemy to bear.”
Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, a senior member of the group, also described Mr. Trump’s announcement as a “victory” for the Houthis, implying in a social media post that the agreement meant that the United States was no longer supporting Israel’s battle against the Houthis.
The U.S. Central Command, responsible for operations against the Houthis, referred questions about the agreement to the White House. The White House declined to elaborate on Mr. Trump’s remarks or respond to inquiries about what the administration would do if the Houthis continued strikes against Israeli vessels.
Mr. Trump, who is prone to make offhand remarks that can upend foreign policy, appeared to catch his own Defense Department off guard. Three Pentagon officials said Tuesday afternoon that the military had yet to receive word from the White House to end its offensive operations against the Houthis. The officials were scrambling to figure out how Mr. Trump’s announcement had changed military policy.
The new U.S. truce with the Iranian-backed militants comes as American officials are working to negotiate a deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and the agreement with the Houthis could play a role in those broader discussions.
Two Iranian officials said on Tuesday that Iran used its influence with the Houthis as part of Oman’s effort to broker a cease-fire and get them to stop firing on U.S. ships. The officials, one in the foreign ministry and one with the Revolutionary Guards, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The Houthis receive weapons and funding from Iran, and are part of a network of what is regionally known as Iran’s axis of resistance. A recent social media post by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened action on Iran over Houthi attacks on American ships.
For the past few weeks, Iranian officials have publicly distanced themselves from the Houthis, saying Iran has no control over the group and that their actions are a response to the war in Gaza. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in mid-March that “Houthis act independently based on their own interests and personal views,” and denied Iran had any proxy militia in the region.
Ahmad Zeidabadi, a prominent reformist analyst, wrote on social media that the cease-fire news between the United States and Houthis was “the best news for him” and the worst news for hard-liners in Iran who support proxy militias in the region.
Still, national security experts cast doubt that an agreement would lead to a long-term cessation of attacks in the Red Sea. Mr. Trump’s announcement came just hours after the Houthis released a statement that said it was fighting a “holy war in aid of the wronged Palestinian people in Gaza” and confronting an “Israeli-American-British” enemy.
The Houthis have described their attacks as an attempt to pressure Israel into increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, where more than two million Palestinians have struggled to obtain food and water — a blockade that has only deepened recently.
Palestinians in Gaza have been under siege by Israel since Hamas carried out a deadly attack in southern Israel in October 2023 and took hostages. Israeli and Houthi forces have also conducted strikes against each other.
“I would anticipate the Houthis will continue to look to strike Israel, as well as what the group calls ‘Israeli-linked’ ships in the Red Sea,” said Gregory Johnsen, a former member of the U.N. Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Yemen. “If that happens, what does the U.S. do: restart the strikes or let Israel deal with the Houthis?”
He also expressed skepticism that the commercial shipping industry would return to the Red Sea en masse, given that the Houthis “haven’t been defeated or degraded to the point that they can’t carry out these attacks.”
“They’ve only promised not to, and whether or not the shipping industry is willing to take the Houthis word for it remains to be seen,” he said.
A U.S. airstrike in Yemen on Monday appears to havekilled at least three dozen people in a Houthi-run compound that human rights researchers say has been used for years as a detention center and at times for military purposes, according to images of the aftermath reviewed by The Washington Post.
Houthi rebels say at least 68 people were killed and dozens more were injured in what they said was a U.S. strike on a prison holding African migrants. The Post’s analysis of visuals found at least 38 people who appeared to be dead and 32 injured, numbers that are almost certainly an undercount given the limited available imagery.
It is not clear from the videos who among the dead are civilians; no military equipment or garb is visible in any visuals reviewed by The Post. Visuals could be located from only one of the two buildings that were destroyed in the attack.
The Houthis have targeted American military forces in the Red Sea, as well as commercial vessels and Israeli military sites to protest the ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed many thousands of civilians. In mid-March, the Trump campaign launched “Operation Rough Rider,” targeting Houthi rebel leadership and infrastructure.
Central Command, which oversees U.S. operations in the Middle East, has not said what it was targeting in the recentstrike but is “aware of the claims of civilian casualties”and is assessingthem, a defense official has said. The U.S. military has said its Yemen operations are executed with “detailed and comprehensive intelligence” to minimize risk to civilians.
The current functions of the compound in northwest Yemen could not be independently determined. The United Nations has described it as having once included a military barracks and more recently as a migrant detention center. One human rights researcher told The Post that it ceased serving military purposes a decade ago, while another said it is used by the Houthis for other purposes and “the migrants are only a front.”
Analysts and current and former U.S. officials said the strike appears to add to mounting evidence that the Trump administration has not prioritized minimizingcivilian casualties in its ongoing air campaign against the Houthis. The Defense Department is moving to dismantle efforts focused on reducing civilian harm in U.S. military operations, The Post has reported, so commanders can focus more on “lethality”when conducting military strikes.
“This strike in particular and the campaign in Yemen in general clearly show a higher tolerance for civilian casualties than previously seen in Yemen and even in the wars against ISIS,” a U.S. official familiar with the campaign said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations. The same official confirmed that Monday’s strike was carried out by the United States.
The videos provide a graphic view of the carnage. “I’m dying now,” one man tells the person filming the video, his body pinned between two slabs of concrete. Dozens of people are crushed by debris, their limbs protruding from the dust. Some are dismembered in the blast. Other remains are likely buried or in parts of the building not visible in the imagery.
Emergency workers sift through the debris, looking for survivors among scattered mattresses, clothes and plastic bowls. The videos and photos were released either by Houthi-owned channels or journalists subject to strict Houthi oversight.
Satellite imagery taken after the strike in the southwest outskirts of the city of Saada shows two large buildings destroyed inside a walled compound occupying about 50 acres, known as Saada City Remand Prison. Both buildings are similar in design and about 120 feet long and just over 500 feet apart, separated by a road.
Other buildings in the same compound were struck in January 2022 by Saudi forces, killing at least 91 detainees and wounding at least 236, according to the U.N. human rights office. At the time, the compound held 1,300 pre-trial detainees and 700 migrants, the U.N. said. It was one of the deadliest strikes of a years-long Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis, which received substantial U.S. assistance.
After the 2022 attack, a Saudi military spokesman said the site was a legitimate target because it was used by the Houthis for military purposes.
Houthi militants used the detention center in northwestern Yemen for military purposes up until 2015 or 2016, when it was converted to a prison, said a Yemen human rights researcher who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.The other Yemen-based researcher, Adnan Al-Gabarni, called the compound an important site and said much is unknown about it.
Representatives from the International Committee for the Red Cross have conducted regular visits to the prison complex since 2018; they declined to comment on the internal conditions of the facility. Visiting the site after the Saudi strike, U.N. human rights representatives said in a report that they saw no signs the compound had a military function.
The Saudi bombing had “catastrophic results for vulnerable migrants being detained by the Houthis,” said Christopher Le Mon, former deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the Biden administration. Speaking about the U.S. military, he said, “It’s just inconceivable that the military wouldn’t have anticipated a serious risk of civilian casualties.”
An ICRC delegation visited the site on Monday following the strike. The ICRC said teams from the Yemen Red Crescent Society had evacuated wounded migrants to two hospitals nearby.
Travelers from African countries have transited through the desert corridor for decades, according to a 2023 Human Rights Watch report, which estimated that more than 90 percent of those en route to Saudi Arabia come from Ethiopia. They have been routinely detained by Houthi forces, who are under increasing pressure from Saudi authorities to stop illegal migration, and often subjected to torture and abuse while detained at centers like the one in Saada, according to the rights monitor.
“African migrants locked up in a prison in northern Yemen are not a lawful military objective,” said Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department, noting that the U.S. military has not publicly identified what its target was or whether it was a mistake.
The number of civilians killed in Yemen has exponentially increased in the weeks since the campaign began. According to Airwars, a Britain-based watchdog organization, U.S. strikes were estimated to have killed 27 to 56 Yemeni civilians in March. The nonprofit Yemen Data Project estimates that at least 97 strikes in March killed 28 people and wounded 66. The casualty toll in April to date is believed to be much higher.
The Houthis said more than 70 people were killed by an airstrike on a Houthi-controlled oil port on April 18.
After Monday’s strike, video released by the Houthi-owned al-Masirah television channel showed remnants of munitions and what appeared to be at least two craters where the building once stood. The visual evidence indicates multiple U.S.-manufactured GBU-39s were dropped, said Trevor Ball, a former Army explosive ordnance disposal technician. The guided munitions are designed to be capable of reducing risk to civilians with precision targeting and a relatively small size.
Photo from the scene of the strike published by Yemen’s Mine Action Program, YEMAC, shows fragments of U.S.-made GBU-39 bombs, according to weapons expert Trevor Ball. At least two fuze wells indicate at least two munitions were used.
There are no clear signs in the images that the damaged building had any military use, Ball said. The foundation is basic concrete, and the inside appeared to be sleeping quarters.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Tuesday the U.S. has struck 1,000 targets, or about 23 per day, since March 15. That pace has raised questions among some experts about whether commanders and analysts can properly assess targets.
“They’ve had some questionable strikes already, and with the operation tempo, chance of mistakes and shortcuts are just going to increase,” Ball said.
Democratic lawmakers last week said they were alarmed by what they called an apparent “serious disregard” for innocent life following reports of deaths in other strikes.
Israel had planned to strike Iranian nuclear sites as soon as next month but was waved off by President Trump in recent weeks in favor of negotiating a deal with Tehran to limit its nuclear program, according to administration officials and others briefed on the discussions.
Mr. Trump made his decision after months of internal debate over whether to pursue diplomacy or support Israel in seeking to set back Iran’s ability to build a bomb, at a time when Iran has been weakened militarily and economically.
The debate highlighted fault lines between historically hawkish American cabinet officials and other aides more skeptical that a military assault on Iran could destroy the country’s nuclear ambitions and avoid a larger war. It resulted in a rough consensus, for now, against military action, with Iran signaling a willingness to negotiate.
Israeli officials had recently developed plans to attack Iranian nuclear sites in May. They were prepared to carry them out, and at times were optimistic that the United States would sign off. The goal of the proposals, according to officials briefed on them, was to set back Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon by a year or more.
Almost all of the plans would have required U.S. help not just to defend Israel from Iranian retaliation, but also to ensure that an Israeli attack was successful, making the United States a central part of the attack itself.
For now, Mr. Trump has chosen diplomacy over military action. In his first term, he tore up the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration. But in his second term, eager to avoid being sucked into another war in the Middle East, he has opened negotiations with Tehran, giving it a deadline of just a few months to negotiate a deal over its nuclear program.
Uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz, Iran, last year.Credit…Planet Labs
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump informed Israel of his decision that the United States would not support an attack. He discussed it with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when Mr. Netanyahu visited Washington last week, using an Oval Office meeting to announce that the United States was beginning talks with Iran.
In a statement delivered in Hebrew after the meeting, Mr. Netanyahu said that an agreement with Iran would work only if it allowed the signers to “go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision with American execution.”
This article is based on conversations with multiple officials briefed on Israel’s secret military plans and confidential discussions inside the Trump administration. Most of the people interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military planning.
Israel has long planned to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, rehearsing bombing runs and calculating how much damage it could do with or without American help.
But support within the Israeli government for a strike grew after Iran suffered a string of setbacks last year.
In attacks on Israel in April, most of Iran’s ballistic missiles were unable to penetrate American and Israeli defenses. Hezbollah, Iran’s key ally, was decimated by an Israeli military campaign last year. The subsequent fall of the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria eliminated a Hezbollah and Tehran ally and cut off a prime route of weapons smuggling from Iran.
Air defense systems in Iran and Syria were also destroyed, along with the facilities that Iran uses to make missile fuel, crippling the country’s ability to produce new missiles for some time.
Initially, at the behest of Mr. Netanyahu, senior Israeli officials updated their American counterparts on a plan that would have combined an Israeli commando raid on underground nuclear sites with a bombing campaign, an effort that the Israelis hoped would involve American aircraft.
But Israeli military officials said the commando operation would not be ready until October. Mr. Netanyahu wanted it carried out more quickly. Israeli officials began shifting to a proposal for an extended bombing campaign that would have also required American assistance, according to officials briefed on the plan.
Some American officials were at least initially more open to considering the Israeli plans. Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, both discussed how the United States could potentially support an Israeli attack, if Mr. Trump backed the plan, according to officials briefed on the discussions.
The aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was repositioned from the Pacific to the Arabian Sea for operations against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, but also to potentially support an Israeli strike on Iran.Credit…Linh Pham/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
With the United States intensifying its war against the Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, General Kurilla, with the blessing of the White House, began moving military equipment to the Middle East. A second aircraft carrier, Carl Vinson, is now in the Arabian Sea, joining the carrier Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea.
The United States also moved two Patriot missile batteries and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as a THAAD, to the Middle East.
Around a half-dozen B-2 bombers capable of carrying 30,000-pound bombs essential to destroying Iran’s underground nuclear program were dispatched to Diego Garcia, an island base in the Indian Ocean.
Moving additional fighter aircraft to the region, potentially to a base in Israel, was also considered.
All of the equipment could be used for strikes against the Houthis — whom the United States has been attacking since March 15 in an effort to halt their strikes against shipping vessels in the Red Sea. But U.S. officials said privately that the weaponry was also part of the planning for potentially supporting Israel in a conflict with Iran.
Even if the United States decided not to authorize the aircraft to take part in a strike on Iran, Israel would know that the American fighters were available to defend against attacks by an Iranian ally.
There were signs that Mr. Trump was open to U.S. support for Israeli military action against Iran. The United States has long accused Iran of giving the Houthis weapons and intelligence, and of exercising at least a degree of control over the group. On March 17, as Mr. Trump warned the Houthis in Yemen to stop their attacks, he also called out Iran, saying that it was in control of the Houthis.
The use of American B-2 stealth bombers, capable of carrying 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs, would make any strike on Iran easier. Credit…Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post, adding, “IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”
There were many reasons that Israeli officials expected Mr. Trump to take an aggressive line on Iran. In 2020, he ordered the killing of Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s most elite military unit. And Iran sought to hire hit men to assassinate Mr. Trump during last year’s presidential campaign, according to a Justice Department indictment.
But inside the Trump administration, some officials were becoming skeptical of the Israeli plan.
In a meeting this month — one of several discussions about the Israeli plan — Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, presented a new intelligence assessment that said the buildup of American weaponry could potentially spark a wider conflict with Iran that the United States did not want.
A range of officials echoed Ms. Gabbard’s concerns in the various meetings. Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; and Vice President JD Vance all voiced doubts about the attack.
Even Mr. Waltz, frequently one of the most hawkish voices on Iran, was skeptical that Israel’s plan could succeed without substantial American assistance.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, during a cabinet meeting last week.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
The recent meetings came shortly after the Iranians said that they were open to indirect talks — communications through an intermediary. In March, Mr. Trump had sent a letter offering direct talks with Iran, an overture that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, had appeared to reject. But on March 28, a senior Iranian official sent a letter back signaling openness to indirect talks.
There is still significant debate within Mr. Trump’s team about what kind of agreement with Iran would be acceptable. The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about what kind of deal it wants, and what the consequences for Iran would be if it failed to agree.
In one discussion, Mr. Vance, with support from others, argued that Mr. Trump had a unique opportunity to make a deal.
If the talks failed, Mr. Trump could then support an Israeli attack, Mr. Vance said, according to administration officials.
During a visit to Israel earlier this month, General Kurilla told officials there that the White House wanted to put the plan to attack the nuclear facility on hold.
Mr. Netanyahu called Mr. Trump on April 3. According to Israeli officials, Mr. Trump told Mr. Netanyahu that he did not want to discuss Iran plans on the phone. But he invited Mr. Netanyahu to come to the White House.
Mr. Netanyahu arrived in Washington on April 7. While the trip was presented as an opportunity for him to argue against Mr. Trump’s tariffs, the most important discussion for the Israelis was their planned strike on Iran.
But while Mr. Netanyahu was still at the White House, Mr. Trump publicly announced the talks with Iran.
President Trump announced talks with Iran during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to the United States.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
In private discussions, Mr. Trump made clear to Mr. Netanyahu that he would not provide American support for an Israeli attack in May while the negotiations were playing out, according to officials briefed on the discussions.
The next day, Mr. Trump suggested that an Israeli military strike against Iran remained an option. “If it requires military, we’re going to have military,” Mr. Trump said. “Israel will, obviously, be the leader of that.”
After Mr. Netanyahu’s visit, Mr. Trump assigned John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, to travel to Jerusalem. Last Wednesday, Mr. Ratcliffe met with Mr. Netanyahu and David Barnea, the head of the Mossad spy agency, to discuss various options for dealing with Iran.
In addition to talks and strikes, other options were discussed, including covert Israeli operations conducted with U.S. support and more aggressive sanctions enforcement, according to a person briefed on Mr. Ratcliffe’s visit.
Brian Hughes, a National Security Council spokesman, said the administration’s “entire national security leadership team” was committed to Mr. Trump’s Iran policy and efforts “to ensure peace and stability in the Middle East.”
“President Trump has been clear: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and all options remain on the table,” Mr. Hughes said. “The president has authorized direct and indirect discussions with Iran to make this point clear. But he’s also made clear this cannot go on indefinitely.”
John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, traveled to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times
The White House and the C.I.A. did not respond to requests for comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence referred questions to the National Security Council. The Defense Department declined to comment. Mr. Netanyahu’s office and the Israel Defense Forces also declined to comment.
In pressing Mr. Trump to join in an attack, Mr. Netanyahu was replaying a debate he has had with American presidents over nearly two decades.
Blocked by his American counterparts, Mr. Netanyahu has instead focused on covert sabotage operations against specific facilities and assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. While those efforts may have slowed the program, it is now closer than it has ever been to being able to produce six or more nuclear weapons in a matter of months or a year.
American officials have long said that Israel, acting alone, could not do significant enough damage to Iranian nuclear sites with only a bombing campaign. Israel has long sought America’s largest conventional bomb — a 30,000-pound bunker buster, which could do significant damage to key Iranian nuclear sites beneath mountains.
Israel considered various options for the May strike, many of which it discussed with American officials.
Mr. Netanyahu initially pushed for an option that would have combined airstrikes with commando raids. The plan would have been a far more ambitious version of an operation Israel carried out last September, when Israeli forces flew by helicopter into Syria to destroy an underground bunker used to build missiles for Hezbollah.
In that operation, Israel used airstrikes to take out guard posts and air defense sites. Commandos then rappelled to the ground. The teams of fighters, armed with explosives and small arms, infiltrated the underground facility and set explosives to destroy key equipment for making the weaponry.
But American officials were concerned that only some of Iran’s key facilities could be taken out by commandos. Iran’s most highly enriched uranium, close to bomb grade, is hidden around the country at multiple sites.
One of Israel’s plans would have combined airstrikes with raids by Israeli commandos to destroy underground facilities, potentially including the heavily guarded Natanz complex.Credit…Raheb Homavandi/Reuters
To be successful, Israeli officials wanted American planes to conduct airstrikes, protecting the commando teams on the ground.
But even if U.S. assistance was forthcoming, Israeli military commanders said that such an operation would take months to plan. That presented problems. With General Kurilla’s duty tour expected to conclude in the next few months, Israeli and American officials wanted to develop a plan that could be carried out while he was still in command.
And Mr. Netanyahu wanted to move fast.
After shelving the commando idea, Israeli and American officials began discussing a plan for an extensive bombing campaign that would have started in early May and lasted more than a week. An Israeli strike last year had already destroyed Iran’s Russian-made S-300 air defense systems. The bombing campaign would have had to begin with striking remaining air defense systems, allowing Israeli fighters to have a clearer path to hitting the nuclear sites.
Any Israeli attack on nuclear sites would prompt a new Iranian missile barrage against Israel that would require American assistance to rebuff.
Senior Iranian officials, from the president to the head of the armed forces and foreign minister, have said that Iran would defend itself if attacked by Israel or the United States.
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the head of Iran’s Armed Forces, said in a speech on April 6 that Iran did not want war and wanted to resolve the standoff with the United States through diplomacy. But he warned: “Our response to any attack on the Islamic Republic’s sovereignty will be forceful and consequential.”
