A previously unreported phone call between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United States President Donald Trump, made less than 48 hours before the joint strike on Iran began, served as a decisive catalyst for the operation that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to a Reuters investigation published on Tuesday.
Both leaders had received intelligence earlier that week indicating that Khamenei and his key lieutenants would soon gather at his compound in Tehran, creating a window for what military planners call a decapitation strike. New intelligence then indicated that the meeting had been moved forward from Saturday night to Saturday morning, compressing the timeline further.
Netanyahu argued during the call that there might never be a better opportunity to eliminate Khamenei and avenge previous Iranian efforts to assassinate Trump, including an alleged murder-for-hire plot in 2024. He told Trump that the killing could make history, that Iranians might rise up and overthrow a theocratic system that had governed the country since 1979.
The three sources briefed on the call told Reuters they believed it, combined with the closing intelligence window, was the catalyst for Trump’s final decision on February 27 to order the military to proceed with Operation Epic Fury. The first bombs struck on Saturday morning, February 28. Trump announced that evening that Khamenei was dead.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had assessed in the weeks prior that killing Khamenei would likely result in his replacement by an internal hardliner. That assessment proved accurate: Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, considered even more harshly anti-American than his father, has since been named Iran’s new supreme leader.
Reuters was careful to note the limits of its findings. The investigation does not suggest Netanyahu forced Trump into war, but it does show that the Israeli leader was an effective advocate whose framing of the decision proved persuasive to the president. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Reuters the operation was designed to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile production capacity, eliminate its naval capability, end its ability to arm proxy forces and guarantee it could never obtain a nuclear weapon.
Both men have since distanced themselves from the narrative. Netanyahu publicly dismissed suggestions that Israel dragged the United States into conflict with Iran, saying: “Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on.” Trump has stated publicly that the decision to strike was his alone. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth offered a different framing in March, telling reporters: “Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh.”
Four weeks into the war, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards continue to patrol the country’s streets while millions of Iranians remain sheltered in their homes. Iran continued firing missiles into Israeli cities on Tuesday, with negotiations remaining in deep dispute between Washington and Tehran.
