Eisenkot: PM harming Israeli interests with surrender to Trump

Trump said to yell at Netanyahu: ‘You’re f**king crazy. You’d be in prison if not for me’

Phone call about Lebanon said to see furious US president ‘steamroll’ PM and accuse him of ingratitude, saying, ‘I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this’; source in PM’s office downplays severity of call

US President Donald Trump reportedly fumed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Monday call, calling the premier “fucking crazy” and telling him that everyone “hates Israel” as he demanded Israel agree to a ceasefire with the Hezbollah terror group.

Axios’s Barak Ravid cited a US official who summarized Trump’s message to Netanyahu as follows: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

A second source briefed on the call told the outlet that the US president was “pissed” at the prime minister over his ostensible plans for major strikes at Hezbollah targets in Beirut, and at one point yelled at Netanyahu: “What the fuck are you doing?”

Two of the sources also said Trump accused Netanyahu of ingratitude during the call on the escalation in fighting in Lebanon, a conversation that Axios described as “expletive-laden.”

Netanyahu’s office did not respond to the report.

An unnamed Netanyahu staffer on Tuesday denied core aspects of the report, however, including the claim that Trump cursed at Netanyahu and attacked him personally during the exchange, while acknowledging that the call was “tense.” A senior Israeli official briefed on the call later told The Times of Israel that the staff member’s account was “accurate.”

The US officials told Axios that Trump was aware Hezbollah has been firing repeatedly at Israel and recognizes that Jerusalem has a right to respond. Fourteen IDF soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah since the April ceasefire, and Hezbollah has stepped up rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel in recent days. But they said Trump believed the Israel Defense Forces had responded disproportionately in recent days, risking Washington’s efforts to secure a ceasefire extension with Iran, which is conditioning a deal on a truce in Lebanon.

Trump “steamrolled” Netanyahu on the call, one of the US officials told Axios, and “Bibi said, ‘OK, OK, just make sure everything is taken care of.”

US officials were also quoted as saying Trump told Netanyahu that he has kept him out of prison, an apparent reference to Trump’s repeated public demand that Israeli President Isaac Herzog pardon the prime minister, who is in the midst of a lengthy corruption trial.

In a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump wrote that he had a “very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way, have already been turned back.”

“He turned his Troops around. Thank you Bibi!” Trump said, describing Israel’s attack plans as “a major raid of Beirut.”

Israeli military sources said no troops had been en route to Beirut, contrary to Trump’s claim.

“Likewise — through highly placed representatives — I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop — that Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel,” Trump added, without specifying with whom he had communicated in the terror group, while also claiming Hezbollah consented to stop targeting Israeli troops.

Netanyahu staffer downplays reported severity of call

On Tuesday afternoon, a member of Netanyahu’s staff admitted to Channel 12 that the premier had a “tense” call with Trump on Monday night over Israel’s planned attack on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, but denied core elements of the earlier Axios report — which was also prominently featured on Channel 12. Reporter Ravid works for both outlets.

The Tuesday report clarified that two calls took place between the leaders on Monday night, one at 7 p.m. Israel time and one close to midnight. It was the latter, according to Channel 12’s Tuesday report, that was the tense call.

After the initial phone call, while Trump wrote on Truth Social that the IDF would not attack Beirut and that Israel and Hezbollah would refrain from attacking each other, Netanyahu warned that he would carry out his previous plans to strike Beirut if Hezbollah did not halt its attacks on northern Israel, and that Israel’s expanded offensive in southern Lebanon would continue.

The second phone call focused on mutual complaints by the two leaders regarding their respective readouts of the first call, according to the Channel 12 report, with Trump upset that Netanyahu had implied that, aside from postponing strikes in Beirut, the war was continuing at full intensity, and Netanyahu frustrated that Trump’s post implied that Israel had ceased fire on all fronts.

However, the Israeli source denied that Trump cursed at or personally attacked Netanyahu, claimed to be protecting him from going to prison, or stated that the premier and Israel are hated around the world. “Trump did say during the second conversation that it is difficult to present Israel’s position to the world and that this fuels hostility toward it,” the Israeli source was reported saying. “The conversation ended with understandings according to which Israel would refrain from carrying out the postponed strike in Beirut, provided that it is not attacked within its own territory,” the source said.

Further confusing the issue, Ravid told Channel 12 on Tuesday afternoon that it was during the first call, not the second, that Trump swore at Netanyahu. The president, Ravid said, quoting US officials, came to that call convinced that Netanyahu was “out of control,” and believing that the prime minister was about to launch an attack on Beirut in which many innocent people would be killed. The conversation became “increasingly heated,” to the point where Trump twice used the f-word.

A senior Israeli official briefed on the call told The Times of Israel Tuesday evening that the Israeli account disputing the more dramatic elements of the report was “accurate,” but declined to address the apparent discrepancies between the various Channel 12 and Axios accounts.

The official summarized the understandings reached between Netanyahu and Trump in a manner largely consistent with Netanyahu’s statement after the first call: “We won’t strike Beirut, and in exchange, Hezbollah is not gonna strike Israel. But our objectives of securing southern Lebanon [and] pushing back Hezbollah from our border will continue.”

Public displeasure

Netanyahu often touts what he says is a strong and close relationship with Trump and the White House. However, Monday’s reported comments were not the first time the US president has expressed displeasure with him.

Last September, Trump reportedly told top aides that Netanyahu is “fucking me.”

The White House also sent what Axios described as a “stern private message” to Netanyahu that same month over the ceasefire with Hamas.

In 2021, Trump lashed out at Netanyahu over the Israeli leader’s congratulations to Joe Biden after he won the US presidency.

“He was very early. Like earlier than most. I haven’t spoken to him since. Fuck him,” Trump said in an interview with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, the reporter behind Monday’s Axios report.

Eisenkot, Ben Gvir slam PM

In the wake of Monday’s reports on the calls, Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar party, seen as a key rival to Netanyahu’s Likud in the upcoming election, blasted Netanyahu for “capitulating” to Trump’s demand.

“There has never been a prime minister in Israel who capitulated to such a demand, one that is blatantly unreasonable!” wrote the former minister and IDF chief on X, decrying the attacks by Hezbollah on northern Israel.

“What Netanyahu, the government, and the cabinet are doing today is harming the national interests of the State of Israel from a place of weakness. And don’t try to spin tales about the connection to the US’s negotiations with Iran,” he said.

“Lebanon is right here, Metula is under fire, Israeli communities are empty — this is unacceptable,” Eisenkot said. “And the one doing this is the man who preached morals to everyone about the basic need to be a prime minister and know how to say ‘no’ to the president of the United States when there’s harm to the interests of the State of Israel.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir also publicly called on Netanyahu to say “no” to Trump over the ceasefire.

“Mr. Prime Minister, you said that a strong prime minister tells the president of the United States ‘yes’ when possible, and ‘no’ when necessary,” Ben Gvir wrote on X. “This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump, ‘no.'”

“Now is the time to do what is required and necessary to strike Hezbollah, to unleash the hands of our fighters and to restore security to the north,” the far-right minister added.

Meanwhile, on the ground

The Axios report came as Trump indicated that Washington had brokered a truce between Israel and Hezbollah after the one reached in April between Israel and Lebanon unraveled in recent days. Despite his announcement, the Iran-backed terror group continued to target northern Israeli communities into early Tuesday morning and Lebanese media reported fresh IDF strikes.

Following Trump’s announcement, an Israeli source said Jerusalem had agreed to postpone planned strikes on Beirut, hours after Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said they had instructed the military to strike Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital.

Trump did not clarify the exact terms of the apparent ceasefire, and there were conflicting indications as to what it entailed from Washington, Jerusalem, Beirut and Hezbollah, with the latter claiming the truce prevents Israel not only from strikes in the Lebanese capital but in the entire country.

There was no immediate response from Israel to Trump’s announcement, but after around two hours, Netanyahu said Israel would proceed with its earlier plans to strike Beirut should Hezbollah not halt its attacks on northern Israel.

Shortly after Netanyahu’s statement, sirens sounded in the Israeli border community of Metula, which the IDF said were triggered by a rocket launched by Hezbollah that struck near Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon.

Sirens were also activated early Tuesday morning in communities across the north, where the IDF said it intercepted two Hezbollah rockets launched toward the area. In the Western Galilee, an apparent Hezbollah drone struck a military position close to the border with Lebanon.

There were no injuries in any of the attacks.

Lebanese media, meanwhile, reported several Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon in the wake of Trump’s announcement, though there was no immediate comment from the IDF.

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the US and Israel attacked its main backer, Iran. Since then, 26 IDF soldiers and one Defense Ministry civilian contractor have been killed in southern Lebanon, 14 of them since a ceasefire was introduced on April 16. Two civilians were also killed by Hezbollah rockets, and an Israeli civilian was mistakenly killed in the north by Israeli artillery shelling.

In Lebanon, the Israeli military has said that it has killed over 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, since early March.

Since March 2, Hezbollah has fired some 5,500 rockets at IDF troops operating in the south of the country, as well as around 2,500 at Israel, according to the military. There were at least 75 rocket impact sites in Israel.

In addition, Hezbollah launched around 300 drones, of which 25 struck Israel, according to the IDF.

The IDF believes Hezbollah still possesses thousands of short-range rockets, along with hundreds of longer-range projectiles. The IDF has said that Hezbollah is launching most of its attacks from deeper within southern Lebanon, north of the Litani River, and not from areas close to the border.

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.