Israel warns US of alleged Iran plot to assassinate Trump • FRANCE 24 English

Israel has warned the United States about a new and specific plan by Iran to assassinate President Donald Trump. U.S. media reporting that Israeli intelligence unearthed the plot, and U.S. authorities were told this week.

The revelation, adding another layer of tension between the nations as their ceasefire deal, appears to fall apart. For more on this story, let's cross to our correspondent in Jerusalem, Noga Tarnopolsky. Noga, the U.S. says there has been a steady drumbeat, as they called it, authorities there, of possible plans to assassinate Trump.

So what makes this one different? I'm not sure that this one really is different. We should remember that these kinds of plots have been even mentioned by the FBI going back quite some time.

In around just before the 2024 election, the FBI was tracking, I think, a much more serious, specific plot with a specific suspect who was even interviewed by the FBI. Someone given orders by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to assassinate Trump either before or after the election. And since then, as you say, there's been a steady drumbeat that the United States has been following.

What we find out from these new publications today is that Israel apparently transmitted sometime in the last week knowledge of a more specific plot, something more precise, perhaps, than the general threats that the United States authorities have been following. But we don't know how seriously the United States is taking this. We don't know with what degree of specificity or of concern the Israelis may have transmitted it.

So I think that it's possible that the most interesting part of this revelation is that U.S. officials saw fit to leak it today at this very crucial juncture, not only for the United States and Iran in what appears to be a possibly unraveling interim agreement, but also certain tensions between Israel and the United States.

I think the timing of this leak is probably more interesting than the specificity of this threat being discussed. Can you say a little bit more about that? Because it's quite openly known that Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu, would prefer that this war in Iran doesn't end.

And there is quite a large hawkish cadre in the U.S. as well of Republicans who believe that this war should continue.

So is there anything that we should be reading into at this crucial juncture where it appears that this peace ceasefire is over? Well, despite Trump's announcement that the ceasefire is over, it doesn't really appear to be 100 percent over. We appear to be in some sort of limbo between full-bore war and a ceasefire.

This was also never declared to be a ceasefire, just an interim agreement, and it appears to be very much interim. Of course, there are concerns that this kind of news may have been leaked or may even worse have been transmitted by Israel in order to advance a political position, you know, pro-antagonism between the United States and Iran. And that possibility can't be discounted.

But we really are in a very murky world in which I would say that the possibility that this was a real threat pinpointed by the Israelis and simultaneously that it may benefit the Israeli government position, one doesn't negate the other. And I certainly don't have insider intel that would indicate for me one way or the other where this stands. Nogat Tarnofolsky in Jerusalem, thank you so much for keeping us updated on the latest in the region.

Appreciate it.