Tel AvivTrump briefed Netanyahu on Iran and China.
Netanyahu convened his war cabinet minutes later; his office said they discussed renewing strikes against Iran.
Israeli media reported strike preparations are underway; no timeline has been announced.
Sources: TASS, TimesNow, The Times of Israel
THE DOCTRINE
Israel's Begin Doctrine, articulated after the 1981 strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor, holds that no hostile state in the region may acquire nuclear weapons. It was reapplied to Syria's al-Kibar reactor in 2007 and has framed every Israeli calculation on Iran since the early 2000s.
THE TARGETS
Iran's nuclear program is deliberately dispersed and buried. Natanz holds the main enrichment cascades; Fordow is built 80–90 meters inside a mountain near Qom; Arak houses a heavy-water reactor; Isfahan handles conversion. No single strike can end the program — only delay it.
THE BUNKER PROBLEM
Fordow sits under enough rock that only the US GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator — a 30,000-pound bomb deliverable only by the B-2 — is credibly believed to reach it. Israel's own bunker-busters cap out well short of this. Any serious strike on Fordow requires American hardware, American pilots, or both.
THE RETALIATION ARC
Iran's response options form a ladder: ballistic missiles on Israeli cities (used April and October 2024), Hezbollah rocket barrages from Lebanon, Houthi strikes on Red Sea shipping, attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria, and closure threats on Hormuz. The 2024 exchanges showed each rung can be climbed without forcing the next.
WHY CHINA IS IN THE BRIEFING
China buys roughly 90% of Iran's sanctioned oil exports, refined through small Shandong 'teapot' refineries that take discounted Iranian crude. Beijing also brokered the 2023 Saudi–Iran normalization. Any conversation about pressuring Tehran routes through Beijing whether Washington likes it or not.
THE WAR CABINET
Israel's wartime decision body is smaller than the full security cabinet — a handful of ministers plus the IDF chief of staff and intelligence heads. It was the forum that authorized the 2024 strikes on Iranian soil, the first direct Israel–Iran exchanges in the Islamic Republic's history.