Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump began planning for a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear program after a meeting in February 2025, and developed an elaborate public deception program, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
During the February meeting, their first under Trump’s second term, Netanyahu presented Trump with four options on what an attack on Iran could look like, according to the report. The four scenarios were an exclusively Israeli attack, an attack led by Israel with minimal US help, full collaboration, and a US-led assault.
While Trump chose to give nuclear diplomacy an opportunity, the intelligence-sharing and preparations for an attack continued, per the report. “The thinking was, if talks fail, we are ready to go,” said one person familiar with the details.
As they moved closer to a strike, the two leaders sought to lull Iran into complacency.
On June 12, Trump said that he preferred a negotiated solution to a military strike. Israeli officials leaked word that top Netanyahu adviser Ron Dermer and Mossad director David Barnea would be meeting senior White House envoy Steve Witkoff in the near future, and a round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran was scheduled for June 15.
Both countries also leaked signs that there were tensions between them. “All the reports that were written about Bibi not being on the same page with Witkoff or Trump were not true,” said a person familiar with the details. “But it was good that this was the general perception; it helped to move on with the planning without many people noticing it.”
According to the US outlet, in preparation for the attack, the Mossad intelligence agency armed more than 100 Iranian agents, some of whom were trained in Israel.
They were given specific missions, but were not told that it was part of a broad assault on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program.
“This operation is unprecedented in history,” an Israeli official said. “We mobilized our own assets and agents to go close to Tehran and launch the ground operation before the air force could enter Iranian airspace.”
Some Iranian agents were given a three-piece “special weapon” designed for precision strikes, a senior Israeli security official added.
Iran managed to retrieve some of the launchers, but not the missiles or a “secret third component,” said the Israeli official.
Israel also assassinated 11 senior Iranian nuclear scientists in the early stages of the attack, in what it called Operation Narnia. To prepare, according to The Washington Post, Israel chose around a dozen top scientists from an initial list of 100, and closely tracked each one and their movements, homes, and work.
A senior Israeli intelligence officer said that Israel tried to minimize collateral damage as much as possible, though dozens of civilians were killed in the strikes.
During the war, while Israel was hammering Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Trump made another, secret offer to Iran on June 15. The offer was far less favorable to Iran than previous ones, and would see Iran stop supporting armed proxies and shut down its enrichment facilities. Trump would then lift all sanctions, according to the offer.
The US sent the offer to Iran via Qatar, but the Iranians rejected it, and Trump decided to join the Israeli operation, according to a senior diplomat.
Israel said its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program was necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.
Iran has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However, it enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities.
Israel said Iran had recently taken steps toward weaponization. Iran retaliated to Israel’s strikes by launching over 500 ballistic missiles and around 1,100 drones at Israel.
The attacks killed 32 people and wounded over 3,000 in Israel, according to health officials and hospitals.
In all, there were 36 missile impacts and one drone strike in populated areas, causing damage to 2,305 homes in 240 buildings, along with two universities and a hospital, and leaving over 13,000 Israelis displaced.