Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reprimanded IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Tuesday after the air force commander disclosed new details about a large planned strike in Iran that was canceled shortly before takeoff.
“He should not have written that,” Netanyahu said during a meeting of the decision-making Security Cabinet, according to officials. “It is a national mistake and harms our unity. It causes embarrassment with Trump.”
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Omer Tishler, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir
(Photo: Nevo Levin, IDF, REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool)
Netanyahu’s comments referred to a letter sent by Maj. Gen. Omer Tishler, commander of the Israeli Air Force, to air force personnel. In it, he described events after an Israeli strike in Beirut’s Dahieh district, a Hezbollah stronghold, and said a major air force operation in Iran was stopped “only an hour before departure.”
“After a strike in the Hezbollah stronghold in Dahieh, the State of Israel was attacked by dozens of surface-to-surface missiles launched from Iran,” Tishler wrote. “Alongside the defensive battle, the air force went on the attack 1,500 kilometers from home. Within a few hours, dozens of targets in Iran were struck, we significantly damaged the Iranian air defense system and attacked additional regime components.”
Tishler then described the planned follow-up strike, which was canceled at the last minute. “The next day, in the afternoon, the entire air force was ready to take off for a broad strike wave,” he wrote. “Hours before the order to launch, with shortened alert time, extraordinary flexibility, arming of the entire air force, planning, preparation and readiness to take off to strike hundreds of targets in the heart of Iran, the attack was halted while we were briefing in the squadrons, only an hour before departure.”
Tishler also referred to the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran. “It is too early to know how global developments will affect the security reality, but our mission was and remains to protect the security of the State of Israel and act on its behalf,” he wrote.
After the Beirut strike last week, and following a conversation between Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, a senior Israeli official said Israel was halting attacks in Iran at Trump’s request.
“The conversation between Netanyahu and Trump was generally good,” the official said. “The two countries see eye to eye, despite the fact that twice in the past day we acted contrary to the president’s public position — both in the strike in Beirut and in the response in Iran.”
Another official said Israel had wanted to strike Iran again Thursday, but that “Trump pressed for it not to happen, and it was canceled.”
The U.S.-Iran memorandum, which has reportedly been signed electronically and is expected to be signed formally Friday, calls for an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, according to a document published by Al Arabiya and circulated by Iranian exiles. The authenticity of the document has not been independently verified.