Inside Israel's plot to kill Hezbollah chief as Netanyahu warned Biden aide would 'jump out of his skin'
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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The book, written by Kaufman and Jerusalem Post senior military analyst Yonah Jeremy Bob, also describes how Netanyahu initially resisted launching a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, only to emerge later as one of the strongest advocates for continuing the war.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu had just seen the IDF, Israel's military, fail miserably on Oct. 7, and Israel's intelligence services fail miserably on October 7," Kaufman told Fox News Digital.
Senior American generals dispatched by President Biden also warned Israeli leaders that a ground invasion could end in military defeat, even in Gaza City, according to Kaufman.
Netanyahu eventually approved the ground operation on Oct. 27, 2023, after weeks of internal debate.
"Over time, he would gain confidence in the IDF, regain confidence in the military, in Israel's intelligence services, and end up outlasting, exhausting, or simply firing all of his war room rivals," Kaufman said.
Kaufman was more critical when asked about Netanyahu's accountability for Oct. 7.
"I have spoken to Prime Minister Netanyahu several times in person, even more on the phone. I had a three hour conversation with him extending well past midnight in Israel," Kaufman said. "I have not heard him take responsibility for what happened on October 7th."
Instead, Kaufman said, Netanyahu consistently points to the failure of senior military officials to alert him before the Hamas assault began. "What he says is, 6:29. They didn't wake me up until 6:29 in the morning on the day of October 7th," Kaufman recounted.
Those remarks came as a new controversy erupted in Israel over the official record of Netanyahu's actions on the morning of the attack.
In a lengthy interview broadcast Thursday by Israel's Channel 12, retired Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, who served as Netanyahu's military secretary at the time, said that the prime minister's chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, attempted to alter the official record of a telephone call between Gil and Netanyahu.
Gil said a stenographer told him she had been instructed to change the recorded time of their first secure telephone conversation from 6:40 a.m. to 6:29 a.m. Gil said he had raised concerns about irregular recordkeeping with the attorney general's office in real time. Braverman has acknowledged seeking to change the recorded time but denied wrongdoing.
Gil also challenged the completeness of Netanyahu's public account of the events preceding the massacre, saying there were significant gaps between what occurred and what had been presented to the Israeli public and in his written statements.
The Likud party dismissed the alleged attempt to falsify the record, saying "the matter had been investigated by police two years earlier and that police had recommended closing the case because it lacked substance." However, prosecutors have not announced a decision to close the case.
Gil also said that opportunities to secure hostage agreements earlier in the war had been lost because of political considerations.
Asked by Channel 12 whether some hostages who died in captivity could have been brought home alive, Gil replied, "We could have."
He indicated that opposition to ceasefires and hostage deals from far-right ministers in Netanyahu's coalition influenced the prime minister's decisions.
While acknowledging that senior Israeli military officials believed Netanyahu was prolonging the war for political reasons, Kaufman challenged the argument that political survival was his sole motivation, pointing to Israel's subsequent campaigns against Hezbollah and Iran. "There were real strategic interests to be pursued," he said.
"Almost all of the real achievements of this war came later in the war," he said, arguing that the subsequent weakening of Hezbollah, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and the attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities complicated claims that continued fighting served only Netanyahu's political interests.
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The book also examines how Israel's early military successes against Iran helped persuade President Donald Trump to authorize U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during the 12-day war in June 2025.
Kaufman described how a Trump administration official showed him a map of Israeli airstrikes that had opened a route toward Fordow, Iran's heavily fortified underground nuclear facility.
According to Kaufman, Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir subsequently made the case directly to Vice President JD Vance that American forces had an extraordinary opportunity to strike.
"You have a straight shot to Iran's nuclear sites. You will never have a better opportunity than this," Kaufman said, recounting Zamir's message to Vance.
Kaufman said the Israeli military chief told Vance that Israeli aircraft were already operating over the area, but that the U.S. possessed the heavy bunker-busting bombs necessary for the Fordow mission.
He credited the vice president with helping secure Trump's final authorization for Operation Midnight Hammer.
"Vice President Vance played a critical role in ultimately securing American participation in the highly successful 12-day war," Kaufman said.
The account challenges the notion that Trump was reluctantly drawn into the conflict by Netanyahu, Kaufman argued, portraying the president instead as responding to an opportunity created by Israel's demonstrated military capabilities.
Jake Sullivan's response was not received by the deadline.