As Israel prepared to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his senior defense officials disagreed over whether to notify the Biden administration ahead of the operation, fearing Washington could try to stop the mission, according to Wall Street Journal editorial writer Elliot Kaufman and a second source familiar with the deliberations.
“140%, they won’t approve of the mission,” Netanyahu told senior Israeli defense officials, according to Kaufman, co-author of “In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel’s Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis,” who recounted the exchange in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi favored informing Washington, believing the Americans might support a strike against a Hezbollah leader linked to the deaths of U.S. service members, according to Kaufman. Netanyahu, however, warned that then-U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan would “jump out of his skin” if he learned of the plans.
The disagreement reflected a widening divide between Jerusalem and Washington over Israel’s military campaign against Iran’s regional proxies, as the Biden administration sought to prevent the fighting from escalating into a broader regional war.
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When Israeli jets struck Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut on September 27, 2024, the Pentagon said it had received no advance warning. Gallant spoke with then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin while the operation was already underway.
The strike killed Nasrallah, who had led the Iranian-backed terrorist organization for more than three decades, marking a major turning point in Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, which opened a second front against Israel on October 8, 2023, a day after Hamas’ deadly attack in southern Israel, and had since launched repeated rocket and missile attacks on northern Israeli communities.
Kaufman argued that Israel had spent nearly a year waiting for American diplomacy to end Hezbollah’s attacks on its northern communities, without success.
“From Israel’s point of view, it had been sitting and waiting for 10, 11 months while Hezbollah had been pounding the north of Israel with rockets and with anti-tank missiles, waiting for American diplomacy to succeed,” he said. “It didn’t work. Something had to change on the northern front.”
Kaufman said the confrontation exposed a fundamental difference in how the two governments approached the war.
“The United States may not have been in Israel’s war room, but it could never be denied a seat at the table when it asked,” he said.
“What I was told from the Israeli prime minister’s office is America’s goal is to de-escalate the war. Our goal is to win the war,’ and we saw that clash at every point, especially during the Biden administration.”
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