U.S. warned Iran about Israel’s aims to assassinate leaders

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/02/us-warned-iran-about-israels-aims-assassinate-leaders/

Senior U.S. officials feared that Israel intended to assassinate Iran’s top negotiators as the Trump administration pursued a high-stakes deal to end the war there and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, current and former officials familiar with the matter said.

That U.S. officials felt the need to take an additional step and warn Iran that its top negotiators could be killed demonstrates the strain in the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Trump administration’s limited influence over the Israeli government, said analysts.

“The turning point wasn’t the assassination of the supreme leader, it was the assassination of Larijani,” said a Western official. “The U.S. was looking for an Iranian official to deal with and all of a sudden he was gone.”