Israel warns Washington: new Iranian plot to kill Trump

Israel has shared new intelligence with Washington regarding an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal reports this in an exclusive, citing sources familiar with the matter: if confirmed, this would mark a further escalation in the conflict between the United States and Iran. Tehran has two deaths to avenge. For years it has been promising retaliation for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the Pasdaran general eliminated on Trump’s orders during his first term. This motive has been compounded by a more recent and pressing one: the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during the current conflict. At his funeral, mourners chanted slogans against the American president, unfurling a banner reading "we will kill him".The Israeli embassy in Washington has not commented, the Iranian mission to the United Nations has not responded, and the White House has referred to the statements made by the president on Wednesday in Ankara. There, Trump had openly alluded to threats against his life: that he was at the top of every target list, and that he had been “a bit lucky” so far.In fact, this is not the first time Trump’s name has been linked to an assassination attempt. In July 2024, during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a 20-year-old man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, shot at him from a rooftop, wounding him in the ear: he was killed on the spot by the Secret Service, after causing the death of a bystander. Two months later, in September, an armed man, Ryan Routh, was discovered lurking near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, before he could even fire a shot. These incidents had already been preceded, in November 2024, by a case linked specifically to Tehran: the US Department of Justice had charged a man, Farhad Shakeri, accused of working on behalf of the Pasdaran on a plot to have Trump killed before the election, offering money to foot soldiers recruited on US soil. More recently, in April 2026, a man opened fire in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in Washington during the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, just a few metres from Trump, Melania and Vance: the three were evacuated unharmed by the Secret Service, whilst the attacker, Cole Thomas Allen, was shot by agents. Trump described him as a “lone wolf”.