Netanyahu denies having pressured military to attack Iran

Israel prime minister Netanyahu has resorted to increasingly alarmist rhetoric and reportedly put pressure on Israel’s military to take action against Iran as his far-right coalition narrowly trails in the polls ahead of Tuesday’s close-run elections.

He posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear mushroom cloud destroying Tel Aviv, telling Israeli voters to choose him or risk nuclear annihilation. Israel’s Channel 12 news also reported that the prime minister and the armed forces chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, clashed in recent days over a directive to the military which could “potentially spark an immediate conflagration with Iran at a very sensitive juncture”, by provoking a miscalculation by Iran.

Netanyahu denied the report, and the defence ministry later denied any intention to carry out military operations against Iran. On Monday however, CNN reported that Netanyahu had tried to convince Donald Trump to launch a renewed assault on Iran in recent weeks, renewing the war both men started in February.

Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the opposition bloc and Netanyahu’s most likely challenger for the prime minister’s job, expressed his confidence in Zamir, stating that they won’t allow the IDF to be turned into a pawn in Netanyahu’s survival campaign. Most polls suggest the mainly centre-right opposition bloc led by Eisenkot is poised to win more seats in Israel’s Knesset than the Netanyahu coalition, but neither would be able to muster the 61 seats necessary for a majority government. The prime minister is also in the midst of a trial on corruption charges, and his legal jeopardy could increase if he loses his grip on power.