Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that the Jewish state did not push the US to carry out a military operation against Iran.
“No, to be honest, this is President Trump's decision“, Herzog said in an interview with the newspaper “Bild“. “He does not need Israel to lead him anywhere.“
The Israeli president refused to predict a possible end date for military operations against Iran. “I believe that if we measure everything only with the speedometer, we will not get very far. "We need to take a deep breath and focus on the bottom line," Herzog said. He also linked the conflict in Gaza to the US-Israeli military operation against Iran. "This is an interconnected war." It began on October 7, 2023, and I think we are now approaching its final chapter, changing the entire configuration of the Middle East,“ concluded the Israeli president.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also stated that the decision of the US leadership to launch a military operation against Iran was not made under pressure from Israel.
Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth has significantly reduced staff in the last year in the agencies responsible for investigating the circumstances surrounding the attack on a girls' school in the Iranian city of Minab, Politico reported, citing its sources.
According to them, the Pentagon agency responsible for developing, analyzing and implementing methods for protecting the civilian population in wartime, which previously had approximately 200 employees, has been reduced by 90%.
Another agency within the US Central Command (CENTCOM) has also been reduced to just one in 10 employees.
As the newspaper notes, these agencies “were conducting an investigation into the recent attack on a girls' school in Iran“. Politico estimates that the cuts in these agencies “have reduced the US's ability to protect civilians during the largest air campaign in decades“.
On February 28, Iranian authorities reported a US and Israeli airstrike on a girls' elementary school in the southern city of Minab. Iran claims that 165 people were killed - mostly students, along with parents and teachers. Another 95 were injured.
On March 7, US President Donald Trump said that the attack on the school was carried out by Iranian forces. He provided no evidence for this claim. On March 9, a group of Democratic U.S. senators said the strike may have been carried out by U.S. forces and demanded that the Pentagon conduct a thorough investigation.