Israeli Officials Say They Learned of Canceled US Strike on Iran From Trump's Social Media, Channel 12 Reports
The Facts
- Israel's Channel 12, citing senior Israeli defense and diplomatic officials, reported that Israel was left without information for hours about an expected joint US-Israeli attack on Iran.
- According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and other senior officials learned that Trump was calling off the strike from his Truth Social post rather than through direct communication from Washington.
- A senior Israeli official was quoted as saying, "For hours, we were in real uncertainty," and "President Trump left us in the fog. Senior officers were updated about what was happening from Trump's social media."
- Trump said on Saturday, in a post on Truth Social, that he had agreed to cancel a planned strike on Iran after Tehran and other Middle Eastern countries requested that any attack be suspended because the parameters of a deal had been agreed.
- Trump said the prospective deal would include the immediate, complete and total opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran's nuclear threat, conditioned on an agreement being concluded quickly.
- In the same post, Trump said Israel had joined the United States in the commitment to complete a deal with Iran — a statement that came alongside Israeli officials' account that they had not been informed in advance of his decision.
- Israeli officials initially suspected the cancellation announcement was an attempt to lull Iran into a false sense of security, and only later reached US counterparts who confirmed the strike had in fact been called off.
- The operation had reportedly been planned for Saturday and, according to the reporting, targeted Iranian energy infrastructure, with the plan drawn up by US Central Command.
- Israeli officials quoted in the reporting said they did not know what Trump's endgame was, and Israeli defense officials have said the repeated cycle of preparing for a US strike that is then delayed or canceled is straining the military's ability to maintain maximum readiness while operating on multiple fronts.
Context
What deal was Trump referring to?
Trump said the parameters of an arrangement to end the war with Iran had been agreed, including the immediate and full opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran's nuclear threat RT en Español,Milenio.com,Telemundo. Sources told Channel 12 that mediators were working to return the US and Iran to a memorandum of understanding the two signed the previous month, which would keep the Strait of Hormuz open for 60 days without fees and renew a ceasefire; that earlier memorandum collapsed amid competing claims over the strait, with Trump insisting it would stay open and Tehran arguing the deal let it set terms Times of Israel. Iranian state media said around the same time that Iran-Oman talks on a mechanism to govern the strait were in their final stages Times of Israel.
Was the US military also unaware of the cancellation?
Firstpost, citing Israeli media, reported that US Central Command was also not given advance notice of the decision to call off the strike Firstpost. Separate reporting on the Channel 12 account said CENTCOM had drawn up the joint operation plan targeting Iranian energy infrastructure beginning the day after a bilateral summit 경향신문. This element rests on a limited number of reports and has not been independently confirmed in the source pool.
Why does advance notice matter for Israel's military?
Israeli security officials say the uncertainty around whether Washington will expand operations repeatedly forces the military into heightened states of alert, and that preparing for a US strike that is then delayed or canceled raises questions about whether Israel can sustain maximum operational readiness without affecting other missions ynetnews. Officials quoted by Channel 12 also described a sense of being sidelined after Trump's announcement Indian Express,Times of Israel.
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- Announcing a called-off strike on a social feed left an ally's prime minister, defense minister and senior officers guessing for hours — both framings treat that as a real failure, not a quirk.
- Where Left and Right split
- War decisions escaping accountable, deliberative channels, or Israel having parked its own security decisions in another capital.
How left and right read it
A strike on Iranian energy infrastructure, drawn up by US Central Command, was reportedly on for Saturday — and then off, with even Israel's prime minister and defense minister learning of the reversal from a Truth Social post rather than direct communication. Senior officers were reduced to reading social media for hours of "real uncertainty." Decisions of war belong in accountable channels, deliberated and answerable, not improvised on one man's feed.
Trump announced on Truth Social that he was canceling the planned strike and that Israel had joined the American commitment to a deal — while Netanyahu, Katz and senior officers learned of the reversal from that same post, and for hours suspected it was a ruse to lull Tehran. Commitments made in an ally's name require consulting that ally first. The deeper lesson is self-reliance: no country should keep its own security decisions in another capital's hands.
The receipts — all 49 sources
Wire services (1)
Independent coverage (48)
Facts first. Then every angle.
The day’s biggest stories in one short brief — the facts everyone agrees on, then the competing values behind the headlines. Free in your inbox.