{"id":950329,"date":"2026-07-21T20:14:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T20:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/950329\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T20:14:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T20:14:19","slug":"donald-trump-signals-broader-iran-strikes-as-israel-braces-for-retaliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/950329\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump signals broader Iran strikes as Israel braces for retaliation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli officials believe US President Donald Trump is preparing to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-902997\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">significantly escalate<\/a> the American military campaign against Iran, according to two Israeli officials.<\/p>\n<p>According to the assessment, an expanded US campaign targeting Iranian strategic infrastructure and senior regime officials would likely prompt <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-903154\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tehran<\/a> to retaliate directly against Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a six-hour security consultation on Monday night with several ministers and senior defense officials to assess the evolving situation.<\/p>\n<p>During the meeting, an Israeli official said, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/benjamin-netanyahu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Netanyahu<\/a> briefly left the discussion to speak with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, US Central Command has entered its 11th consecutive day of strikes against Iran. A source familiar with the operation told The Jerusalem Post that CENTCOM has struck approximately 1,000 targets across Iran over the past 10 days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">On Tuesday during a meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Trump said Tehran was \u201cdesperate\u201d to hold talks, warning that it had \u201cnot seen anything yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Trump added that the US will be hitting the Pickaxe Mountain area, located near Iran&#8217;s heavily damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility, &#8220;pretty soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Pickaxe Mountain is a heavily fortified site that hosts two deeply buried tunnel complexes that experts assess as beyond the reach of the most powerful bunker-buster bombs in the US arsenal.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, a source told the Post that it is no longer a matter of when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/article-903213\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Trump<\/a> would strike, but when he will strike.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;He understands that, barring an unexpected development, the chances of a diplomatic solution is now virtually nonexistent,&#8221; the source said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">However, another official cautioned that Trump has changed course &#8220;at the last minute&#8221; before, noting that his position could still shift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli officials believe US President Donald Trump is preparing to significantly escalate the American military campaign against Iran,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":950330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[372,58985,69,83,99,3097,50,5503,2053,4352],"class_list":["post-950329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-centcom","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-tehran","tag-trump-administration"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116959803306963578","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}