US secretly warned Iran that Israel might kill its top negotiators during ceasefire talks, sources say

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - At the height of the most sensitive ceasefire negotiations of the US-Iran war, American officials grew so alarmed that Israel might assassinate Iran's top negotiators that they secretly asked regional governments to warn Tehran about the possible threat, according to current and former US officials cited by the New York Times on Thursday.

The officials said Washington feared that Israel had plans to target Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the two men who had stepped forward to lead Iran's negotiating delegation after earlier Iranian officials involved in talks with Washington had already been killed in Israeli airstrikes.

NBC News confirmed the report on Thursday, citing a US official and an Iranian official with knowledge of the matter, adding that the warning was communicated to Tehran through intermediaries. The Washington Post separately confirmed on Thursday that US officials had warned Iran to take precautions.

The Negotiators Who Replaced the Dead

The urgency of Washington's concern was shaped in large part by what had already happened to Iran's earlier potential negotiating partners. As the New York Times reported, Israel had killed Ali Larijani, Iran's top national security official, and Kamal Kharazi, a former Iranian foreign minister, both of whom had been involved in early discussions with the Americans. In March 2026, Trump himself acknowledged the loss in stark terms. "Most of the people we had in mind are dead," he told reporters when asked about possible Iranian negotiating partners.

Araghchi and Ghalibaf stepped into those roles after the April 8, 2026, ceasefire, becoming the primary faces of Iran's engagement with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law who also played a central role in the negotiations. Once talks were formally underway, US officials concluded that any Israeli attempt to kill either man would, as the Times of Israel reported Thursday, leave "no one else to talk to" and would almost certainly reignite the war.

A Pakistani official told Reuters in March 2026 that Israel had removed both Araghchi and Ghalibaf from its target list after Pakistan requested that Washington not target them. The New York Times reported Thursday that the Trump administration had a more active role in at least Ghalibaf's removal, directly asking Israel not to target him.

Pakistani Jets and a Near-Miss Over Iranian Airspace

The most dramatic episode in this hidden dimension of the peace talks emerged when Ghalibaf traveled to Islamabad in April 2026 to meet with Vice President JD Vance. Iranian security officials, already concerned that Israel would use the trip as an opportunity to assassinate the delegation, sought guarantees from the United States through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries that no covert operation would be launched against the Iranian team while they were abroad.

As an additional security measure, Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian aircraft carrying a delegation of more than 70 officials from the Iranian border to Islamabad and back. The precaution proved prescient. On the return flight to Tehran, Iran's security forces notified Ghalibaf's aircraft that they had picked up intelligence indicating that two Israeli fighter jets had entered the area with what was assessed as hostile intent toward the plane. The delegation arrived safely in Tehran, but the incident deepened Iranian concerns about the physical risks their negotiators were taking by engaging with Washington.

Ghalibaf himself narrowly escaped death on two previous occasions. The Jerusalem Post confirmed Thursday that he was nearly killed during the 12-day war in June 2025 and again during the 2026 war, requiring rescue from beneath rubble on both occasions.

War Aims That "Diverged Radically"

The reported Israeli plot, whether or not it was as concrete as US officials feared, sits within a broader pattern of friction between Washington and Jerusalem over the fundamental objectives of the war. As the New York Times reported, the two countries' war aims "quickly diverged radically," with Washington focused on extracting a negotiated settlement and Israel insisting on the continuation of fighting to achieve regime change, the destruction of Iran's proxy forces, and serious damage to its missile programme.

CNN reported on Thursday that in one particularly heated exchange in June 2026, Trump used expletives to convey his disapproval of a planned Israeli military operation in Lebanon, according to two people familiar with the conversation. Israeli officials broadly viewed the June 17 memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran as a strategic setback, fearing it would allow Iran to rebuild financially without meaningfully restricting its nuclear ambitions.

Trump officials have also been closely monitoring Israel's expanded espionage operations, CNN confirmed on Thursday, with Israel having ramped up intelligence collection on both Iranian and American officials in recent months. The Defense Intelligence Agency had separately elevated Israel's counterintelligence threat rating to its highest level, "critical," in recent weeks, as Kurdistan 24 previously reported.

Israel Calls It "Fake News"

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office responded to the New York Times report with an X post on Friday: "As usual, The New York Times' latest story about Israel and the Iranian negotiators is fake news. A complete fabrication of reality." A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington declined further comment. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Whether the Israeli threat was as specific and operational as American officials feared, or a more general assessment of Israel's documented willingness to target senior Iranian figures, the episode reveals how close the entire peace process came to unraveling during its most critical phase, and how much of the diplomatic architecture that produced the June 17 memorandum of understanding depended on keeping Iran's two lead negotiators alive long enough to sign it.