U.S. officials believed Israel was plotting to kill Iranian negotiators

U.S. officials believed that Israel might have been plotting to kill Iran’s top negotiators while Washington was engaged with Tehran in delicate talks this spring to reach an interim peace deal, according to current and former American officials.

Killing senior Iranian leaders had been part of Israel’s strategy from the start of the war. But American concerns about the targeting of two particular Iranian officials — Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament — spiked during delicate cease-fire negotiations that began in April.

Fearful that an Israeli assassination effort would doom the negotiations, the United States, according to some of the officials, went so far as to ask other countries in the region to warn Iran about the possibility Israel could target the two officials.

U.S. officials acknowledged that during the intense phase of the war, Mr. Araghchi and Mr. Ghalibaf, as senior government officials, could have been legitimate targets for Israel, which was intent on toppling Iran’s hard-line government. But after the negotiations started in earnest in April, American officials believed that any attempt to kill the Iranian leaders would end the talks and reignite the fighting.

The war began on Feb. 28 with an Israeli strike that killed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top officials.

While U.S. strikes focused on Iran’s navy and missile forces, Israel prioritized targeting the leadership in the early phase of the war, intent on killing as many high-ranking officials as it could.

That included killing potentially more pragmatic leaders that the Trump administration had hoped to negotiate with, such as Ali Larijani and Kamal Kharazi. Both men were involved in the negotiations with the United States when they were killed in Israeli airstrikes.

The Trump administration’s suspicions about the possible Israeli plot to kill the two top negotiators show how the U.S. and Israeli war aims, which were close at the very beginning of the war, quickly diverged radically. And while the United States wanted a peace agreement, Israel has been skeptical from the initial cessation of hostilities in April.

Mr. Araghchi and Mr. Ghalibaf have been the key officials negotiating with various countries in the region to reach a cease-fire and then a more lasting peace with the United States. In June, the United States and Iran reached a framework agreement that sought to open the Strait of Hormuz and set the outline for follow-on talks on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Israeli officials viewed the initial agreement as a disaster, because it did not accomplish their country’s war aims of forcing regime change, destroying Iran’s proxy forces and seriously damaging its missile program.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment.

Asked about Israeli plans and the warning to Iran, a U.S. official noted that talks between American and Iranian delegations continue and that Steve Witkoff, a special envoy, and Jared Kushner had productive meetings in Qatar. President Trump, the official said, wants the peace process “to play out.”

During the negotiations, Iran has taken precautions aimed at making it more difficult for Israel to strike at senior officials. In one incident, Iranian security forces notified the plane carrying Mr. Ghalibaf that they had picked up intelligence that Israel planned to attack the plane, leading to an emergency landing.

The officials have continued to travel, including meetings in Qatar and Switzerland in May and June.