Netanyahu pressed Trump to strike Iran immediately after US midterms, while Trump wants talks to play out, reports say
Reports citing American and Israeli sources say Benjamin Netanyahu urged Donald Trump on Saturday to resume strikes on Iran straight after Tuesday's midterm elections, while Trump currently prefers to give Qatari-mediated negotiations more time.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged United States President Donald Trump during a telephone call on Saturday to resume military strikes against Iran immediately after Tuesday's midterm elections in the United States, according to reports citing sources familiar with the conversation. Trump, the reports say, currently wants to give diplomatic negotiations with Tehran more time before deciding whether major combat operations should resume.
The account, first detailed by Axios and carried by Israel's Channel 12 and other outlets, describes a pointed exchange between the two leaders over the state of US negotiations with Iran and the timing of any return to fighting. One Israeli source described the call as tough, while an American source described it as direct, Axios reported. The White House and the Israeli Prime Minister's Office both declined to comment on the reported details.
The Wall Street Journal had first reported on Saturday that Trump and Netanyahu had spoken by telephone, without initially describing what was discussed. The fuller account that followed placed the call in the middle of a tense sequence: Trump has publicly discussed preparations for possible renewed strikes, while Qatari mediators have been holding talks with Iranian officials in Doha for three consecutive days.
According to the reports, Netanyahu is concerned that the diplomatic track could lead to a dramatic easing of pressure on Iran. Trump, by contrast, is said to want Israel to refrain from interfering with the negotiation effort for now, and to let the talks run their course. The disagreement is therefore presented not as a dispute over whether Iran should be confronted, but over timing and sequencing — strikes immediately after the elections, or diplomacy first.
The context matters because the war that began in February 2026 has not produced a settled peace. A ceasefire framework and a series of exchanges have left the core questions unresolved, including the future of Iran's nuclear programme, its missile capabilities, and the naval blockade and shipping confrontation in the Gulf. Trump has said in recent days that Washington still has one or two targets in Iran to deal with, and that strikes could be carried out within minutes, while also saying he would not attack before the midterm elections.
Qatari mediation sits at the centre of the diplomatic effort. Reports say mediators in Doha have maintained direct contact not only with Iranian officials but also with US Vice President JD Vance and Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei disclosed on Saturday that he had received a letter from Vance seeking to revive stalled talks, a disclosure that underlines how active — and how fragile — the back-channel remains.
Inside Israel, the reported call has also become part of a domestic political argument. Netanyahu, who has just come through a general election that left neither his bloc nor the opposition with a clear path to a new government, has spoken publicly about the possibility of renewed fighting. A political rival, Gadi Eisenkot, has said he would back military action only if it were needed to counter a direct and immediate threat before a new government is formed, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Iran, for its part, has warned in the strongest terms against any new attack. Its supreme leader has warned the United States and Israel of an immediate, impactful and geographically unrestricted response to any fresh strike, and senior Iranian military figures have said a future war could last longer and spread wider than the previous round of fighting. Those warnings raise the stakes of any decision taken in Washington after Tuesday.
What happens next now depends on three clocks running at once. The first is the American electoral calendar: the midterms on Tuesday will determine the balance of power in Congress and, in the reporting, the earliest moment at which Netanyahu wants strikes to resume. The second is the negotiation clock in Doha, where mediators are working on a framework that could include steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and ease the shipping confrontation. The third is the military clock, with US commanders having briefed Trump on options for resuming major combat operations.
None of those clocks has yet produced a decision that either government has confirmed publicly. Until one does, the reported call stands as the clearest public sign of a split at the top of the US-Israeli relationship over Iran: one leader pressing for action as soon as the polls close, the other holding the door open for a deal, with the region watching both.
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