TEHRAN, July 8 (Alliance News): Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has claimed that Israel attempted to assassinate him during its 12-day war with Iran last month, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging the region into endless conflict and calling on the United States to avoid entanglement in what he described as “Netanyahu’s war.”
In a wide-ranging interview released Monday with U.S. political commentator Tucker Carlson, Pezeshkian alleged that the Israeli military targeted the location where he was holding a meeting during the conflict in mid-June. The alleged attempt, he said, was unsuccessful.
“They did try, yes. They acted accordingly, but they failed,” President Pezeshkian told Carlson, referring to what he described as an Israeli strike aimed at killing him. “It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting… they tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting,” he said, according to a translation from Persian.
The interview marks the first time President Pezeshkian has publicly accused Israel of attempting to assassinate him, adding a dramatic layer to the already tense regional dynamics following the unprecedented conflict.
The 12-day war, which erupted on June 13, involved Israeli strikes on Iranian soil, including targeted bombings of sensitive nuclear sites in Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz.
The strikes came just two days before scheduled nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington, effectively stalling renewed efforts to reach a deal on Iran’s atomic program.
According to Iranian judiciary sources, more than 900 people were killed during the hostilities, including top Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists.
Iran responded with waves of retaliatory drone and missile attacks, resulting in the deaths of 28 people in Israel, according to Israeli authorities.
A ceasefire between the two nations has been in place since June 24, but tensions remain high amid threats and counter-threats. On June 16, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made global headlines when he refused to rule out the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
President Pezeshkian used his interview with Carlson to issue a stark warning to the United States: stay out of Israel’s military ambitions.
“The U.S. administration should refrain from getting involved in a war that is not America’s war, it is Netanyahu’s war,” he said. He accused the Israeli premier of pursuing a policy of “forever wars” in the Middle East to serve personal and political interests, rather than broader regional peace.
Pezeshkian also signaled Iran’s willingness to return to the negotiating table over its nuclear program, provided trust can be restored between Tehran and Washington.
“We see no problem in re-entering the negotiations,” he said, adding a caveat. “There is a condition… for restarting the talks. How are we going to trust the United States again?”
He expressed skepticism over future talks, citing Israel’s disruptive role. “We re-entered the negotiations, then how can we know for sure that in the middle of the talks the Israeli regime will not be given the permission again to attack us?” Pezeshkian asked.
Iran’s nuclear program has long been a point of contention between Tehran, Washington, and Tel Aviv. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which curtailed Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief, collapsed after the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 under the Trump administration.
Since then, sporadic attempts to revive the deal have faltered amid mistrust, geopolitical friction, and now open conflict between Iran and Israel.
The latest hostilities have drawn international condemnation, though the official BRICS declaration—adopted at the group’s recent summit—condemned the attacks on Iran and Gaza without explicitly naming Israel or the United States.
Observers warn that continued escalation between Iran and Israel, particularly with threats to high-ranking officials, risks dragging the broader region—and possibly global powers—into a prolonged conflict.
As President Pezeshkian concluded in his interview, “Liberation and sovereignty cannot be achieved through bloodshed, nor can peace emerge when nations are pushed into cycles of aggression. We want dialogue, but we need guarantees.”
With the ceasefire still fragile and mutual distrust at an all-time high, the world now watches closely to see whether diplomacy can prevail or if the region is headed for another confrontation.
