US president Donald Trump rejected an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two US officials told Reuters on Sunday.
The news comes as Israel and Iran continue to launch waves of missile strikes at each other for the third day of their escalating conflict.
On Friday, Israel launched a massive attack on Iran in a bid to halt its nuclear program. The health ministry reported 224 people have been killed since Israel’s initial attack. The agency said another 1,288 people were hospitalised and said over 90 per cent of the casualties were civilians.
Iranian officials have confirmed the head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit, Mohammad Kazemi, had been killed alongside a deputy and another commander.
In Israel, at least 10 people, including two children, were killed in Iranian strikes overnight and into Sunday, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. This brings the country’s total death toll to 14, with hundreds injured.
On Sunday evening, sirens blared in Israel, causing people to take shelter as incoming missiles were intercepted. Iran’s state TV said the country attacked Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities with “tens of Iranian missiles and drones”.
In the days since Israel’s initial attack on Iran, US officials have been in constant communications with Israeli officials, according to US authorities.
Trump told Reuters on Friday that “we knew everything” about the Israeli strikes.
Reuters also quoted an unnamed Trump administration official saying the US is “not even talking about going after the political leadership” until an American citizen is killed by Iran.
Trump had earlier said the US had no role in Israel’s attack and warned Tehran not to widen its retaliation to include US targets.
On Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, he wrote: “The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight. If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before. However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!”
In an interview on Sunday with Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the Reuters report, saying: “There’s so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I’m not going to get into that.”
“But I can tell you, I think that we do what we need to do, we’ll do what we need to do. And I think the United States knows what is good for the United States.”
There had been US-Iranian negotiation talks scheduled for Sunday in Oman over Tehran’s nuclear program. They were cancelled as a result of the strikes.
Speaking to ABC America, Trump said it was “possible” for the US to become militarily involved in the Israel-Iran conflict, adding that he was open to the idea of Russian President Vladimir Putin acting as a mediator between the two sides.
Trump held a phone conversation with Putin on Sunday, and said: “[Mr Putin] is ready. He called me about it. We had a long talk about it.”
Following this, Trump urged Iran and Israel to “make a deal” to end the conflict, writing on Truth Social: “We will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran! Many calls and meetings now taking place.”
European leaders are gathering today in Canada for the G7 meeting, and its expected for them to spend the opening day asking Trump to justify his confidence that Israel and Iran will make a deal that will mean “peace soon”.