Two Israeli fighter jets crossed into Iranian airspace from Iraq on the night Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf flew home from talks in Islamabad, according to The New York Times. Iranian security forces warned his aircraft, which landed in an emergency at Mashhad. The Iranian parliament speaker and his delegation covered the rest of the way to Tehran by road, an eight-hour drive.
That flight on the return from the April 12 meeting with US Vice President JD Vance is the sharpest episode in a Times report published July 2. It says American officials feared Israel was ready to kill Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s two lead negotiators, while the US and Iran were trying to turn a ceasefire into a deal.
A warning passed through third countries
The United States did not warn Tehran directly. According to the Times, officials asked intermediaries in other regional countries to carry the message that both men might be targeted.
The logic was simple. When the war began on February 28, Israel was working through Iran’s senior leadership, and Ghalibaf and Araghchi could have counted as fair military targets. Israel had already killed national security chief Ali Larijani and former foreign minister Kamal Kharazi. But the ceasefire of April 8 changed the calculation. With the two men now speaking for Tehran at the table, killing either would likely have collapsed the talks and restarted the fighting.
Ynet, summarizing the Times account, said American officials feared such a strike would “destroy the talks and trigger a renewed round of fighting.” It added that Washington learned Ghalibaf was on an Israeli target list and asked Israel to hold off.
Pakistan’s part
Pakistan had raised the alarm earlier. A Pakistani official told Reuters in March that Israel took both men off its targeting list after Islamabad asked Washington to step in. His reasoning: “if either or both of the men were killed, there would be no one else to talk to.”
Iran took its own precautions before the Islamabad round. It sought international assurances against assassination attempts, and Pakistani fighter jets escorted the delegation on the way in.
Ghalibaf has been close to death before. The Times said he survived Israel’s June 2025 war with Iran and was pulled from rubble again earlier this year after strikes on buildings where he was.
Netanyahu’s office: “fake news”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office rejected the account outright. “As usual, The New York Times’ latest story about Israel and the Iranian negotiators is fake news,” it said, calling the story “a complete fabrication of reality.”
Ynet reported that the episode points to a wider split between Washington and Jerusalem. The two governments started the war in step. They drifted apart as the US pushed a peace framework while Israel doubted the conflict could end without regime change in Tehran. In June the US and Iran agreed a framework covering the Strait of Hormuz and nuclear talks, which Israeli officials judged inadequate.
Sources
- US indirectly warned Iran during talks that Israel might try to kill its top negotiators — NYT
- Report: US feared Israel would kill Iran negotiators during peace talks
