Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed he deliberately withheld advance notice from Washington before the September 2024 strike that eliminated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to an interview published in Makor Rishon.
Netanyahu stated that when his team moved to eliminate Nasrallah, advisers urged him to update the Americans first. "You understand that if I had done that, Nasrallah would have received an immediate warning and fled," he told the Israeli weekly. Asked whether the Americans would have tipped Nasrallah off, Netanyahu responded: "Definitely. You would have found it in Thomas Friedman's New York Times within five minutes."
The remark signals Netanyahu's deep mistrust of information-sharing with the Biden administration during critical operations. The strike that killed Nasrallah marked a turning point in Israel's campaign against Hezbollah's leadership structure.
