The phone call that halted Israel's strikes on Iran

New Statesman​

2 days ago

Photo by Khoshiran / Middle East Images via AFP / Getty Images
In the early hours of 13 June, Israel launched a series of audacious air strikes across Iran – a step the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been agitating to take since at least the 2000s. Yet his critics have argued it was reckless: a pre-emptive war driven not by an imminent nuclear threat but by his own calculations and messianic self-perception.
The Iranian leadership, under the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also perpetuated its own narrative of existential struggle – including rhetoric pledging and predicting the annihilation of Israel. Informed by Khamenei's sense of his divine mission, the regime continues to justify not only its oppressive tactics against dissent at home – resulting in tens of thousands imprisoned or executed – but also its confrontational policies towards Israel and its allies.
Going nuclear
Netanyahu sent a team to Washington in the days before the strikes, to present intelligence on the Iranian nuclear programme to its counterparts in the US. The Americans, however, didn't seem convinced. Earlier this year, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, told lawmakers Iran was not building a bomb and that the supreme leader had not reauthorised a nuclear weapons programme which the Americans had assessed was halted in 2003. Gabbard was later forced to backtrack after Donald Trump said she was wrong.
In Jerusalem, I raised Gabbard's testimony with Israel's president, Isaac Herzog. 'The truth of the matter is, there was no other choice,' he claimed. 'It was, just as we say in football, the 90th minute, because the Iranian nuclear programme was rushing to the bomb. They were proceeding dramatically.'
Intercepting strategy
Following Iran's response to the Israeli strikes, it became clear this was a race between Iranian ballistic missiles and Israel's air defences. As more military facilities and residential buildings were struck in Israel, I realised the country was low on interceptors. I raised this in my interview with Mossad's former director of intelligence Zohar Palti. He was aware of Israel's vulnerabilities, but did not want to discuss them when so many agents were still operating in Iran. Palti told me he was amazed by how quickly Israel was able to control Iranian airspace. But he did reiterate the war needed to end soon: 'In the next few days, we can call a ceasefire.' I couldn't decide if this was because he felt Israel had achieved its objectives or because it didn't have the interceptors needed to continue for many more weeks.
Sound the alarm
Speaking to Israelis, I found a level of support for Netanyahu's military posture. But there was also a growing undercurrent of concern regarding the potential for a descent into a war of attrition. The fear of a prolonged conflict reverberated; the question being asked was: 'How long are the Israeli people willing to rush to bunkers to avoid Iranian missiles?' Night after night, we hurried into our hotel's bunker as sirens blared throughout Israeli cities and on our phones. It would usually begin around 2.30am and could continue until sunrise. If I were standing on the rooftop, ready to broadcast, I could see the air defences swinging into action, ensuring the missiles didn't fall on their targets.
Equally, tens of thousands of Iranians fled their homes and cities fearing further air strikes. Iranians have not seen bombardment and conflict within their borders since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
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No war, no peace
In my talks with Israeli officials, they were convinced it was only a matter of time before the US would launch air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. We were seeing the complex interplay of military action and diplomatic posturing, with Trump threatening to attack Iran and calling on Iranian officials to return to the negotiating table. Within 48 hours, the US dropped its bunker-busting bombs; Iran responded by attacking a US base in Qatar, and Trump call for an end to 'the 12-day war'.
When Trump announced that both sides had agreed to stop fighting, we thought Iranians and Israelis would finally get a night's rest. But Iran launched multiple salvos of ballistic missiles against Israel in the early morning, in violation of the just-established ceasefire. My sources within Israel's intelligence community told me planned retaliatory strikes were halted by a phone call from Trump to Netanyahu. A fighter jet executed a solitary air strike, dropping a bomb on a site deemed symbolic rather than strategic. This was interpreted as a final show of force, to demonstrate Israel's military readiness without reigniting the war. As tensions simmer, the world watches on, aware the situation could change at any moment.
[See also: Morgan McSweeney's moment of truth]
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