Report: Mossad chief in Washington as Netanyahu pushes for renewed Iran strikes

Mossad Director Roman Gofman traveled to Washington on Friday for discussions with senior officials in the Trump administration concerning the ongoing confrontation with Iran, Axios reported, citing three sources familiar with the visit. Gofman, a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, held talks with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, according to the sources. One source said the Mossad chief was also expected to travel to Miami for a meeting with White House envoy Steve Witkoff.

The visit comes as Netanyahu continues to urge US President Donald Trump to authorize renewed military strikes against Iran, despite the President's reluctance to resume large-scale combat operations. According to a US official cited by Axios , Trump and Netanyahu discussed the Iran war during a telephone conversation on November 5. However, the President has so far resisted the Prime Minister's calls for additional strikes. Instead, Trump has favored an approach supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, maintaining the American naval blockade and economic pressure on Iran while exploring the possibility of reaching a negotiated agreement.

The Mossad, CIA and White House all declined to comment on Gofman's visit. Despite his decision not to immediately renew military operations, Trump made clear Thursday that further strikes against Iran remain an option. Speaking with the Salem News Channel , the President was asked whether he would hesitate to order another military attack against the Iranian regime. "No. No hesitation. We're doing very well with it right now. We're taking out more oil now than we did before the, if you call it a war, before the war started.

We're taking out more oil," Trump responded. He also defended the results of the American military campaign, emphasizing the damage inflicted on Iran and the absence of recent US military fatalities. "And you know, the thing about the war. We've been fighting, you know, pretty, at a pretty rapid clip for three weeks, not seven months, for three weeks. Nobody's been killed in the last five months. You know, in Russia, they're losing 25,000 people a month between Russia and Ukraine, mostly soldiers.

We haven't lost a soldier in five months and we control the Gulf...but the answer is if I saw things going the other way, I would, I would do that. And it's, it's possible I would do it right now," Trump added. In a separate interview with Stephen A. Smith, Trump elaborated on why he had refrained from ordering a broader assault on Iranian infrastructure, saying that regional allies, including Israel, favored continuing the current approach.

He said that Saudi Arabia and several Gulf states had urged him to allow additional time for the existing military and economic pressure to weaken the Iranian regime. Trump nevertheless suggested that he personally favored stronger action and could rapidly destroy much of Iran's remaining infrastructure if he chose to escalate the campaign. "And we haven't attacked their energy at all. We haven't attacked their energy. If I want to take them out, I hit there.

In one day, their energy is gone. In one day, their bridges are gone. And in one day, their manufacturing capability is gone," he said. "It would only take me three days, one day each," Trump added. (Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)