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US thwarted Netanyahu, Mossad plan to attack Iran ahead of Israeli elections

November 9, 2026

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief Roman Gofman sought to launch an attack on Iran just before Israel’s 27 October election for political gain, Israeli media reported on 6 November.

Israel’s Channel 12 news aired an unsourced report on Friday claiming that Netanyahu gave the order to move ahead with the attack. However, the operation was reportedly blocked by Washington after an Israeli security operative made a mistake that led US intelligence to learn of it.

The Channel 12 report claimed further that the operation was not backed by other senior officials in the Israeli security establishment, who worried it could spark a major escalation in the stalled war on Iran and cause Knesset elections to be canceled.

The Prime Minister’s Office denied the report, stating that “The prime minister himself clarified in real time that an attack before the Israeli elections was not on the agenda.”

Netanyahu was planning to execute a Mossad operation in Iran, days before the Israeli elections, despite the objections of the military. America got to know of it and stopped the operation pic.twitter.com/1jQwlz0I6z

— Navroop Singh (@TheNavroopSingh) November 7, 2026

Netanyahu’s Likud party won 27 seats in the 120-seat Knesset elections, the most of any party. However, Netanyahu’s bloc won only 53 seats, far short of the 61 needed to form a coalition and keep him in power as prime minister.

For now, opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot has the best chance of becoming Israel’s next prime minister.

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, a rival of Netanyahu, said in a Thursday interview that Netanyahu planned to carry out “a provocation” relating to Iran “via the Mossad, behind the back of the IDF chief of staff.”

Other reports in advance of the elections pointing to such an operation have also appeared in the Israeli media.

Two days before the Knesset elections, Channel 12 reported that an “unprecedented confrontation” had erupted between Netanyahu and Israeli military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir surrounding an order given by the prime minister for unspecified military action against Iran.

BREAKING: NETANYAHU SAYS HE ORDRED TRUMP INTO IRAN WAR:

“When I came to President Trump, I told him:

"We are going into Iran."

I did not ask permission. I simply informed him of our plan.” pic.twitter.com/jQKN86h1en

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) June 24, 2026

The report claimed that Zamir had resisted carrying out the operation and demanded signed documentation from Netanyahu authorizing it.

Channel 12 quoted a military source saying, “This relates to an action that could lead to a flare-up with Iran, at a sensitive and dramatic moment, creating this [potential] miscalculation.”

The report quoted unnamed sources saying the operation could be launched “to utilize the Iranian issue for political benefit.”

One day before the elections, the New York Times reported that Netanyahu had “sought for weeks to orchestrate a new airstrike on Iran” but was blocked by Zamir.

Netanyahu also reportedly urged Donald Trump to resume the war against Iran immediately after the US mid-term elections, which saw the US president’s Republican Party suffer a broad defeat to the Democratic Party.

The election results, which will give control of Congress and the Senate to the Democrats, are widely viewed as a result of Trump’s unpopular decision to wage war on Iran in February at the urging of Netanyahu.