Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear site is a key target in the current operation against the Islamic Republic, Israel’s national security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, said on Tuesday.

“This operation will not conclude without a strike on the Fordow nuclear facility,” Hanegbi told Israel’s Channel 12 News.

The Fordow facility is home to thousands of centrifuges, crucial to Iran’s weapons-grade uranium enrichment program, and is located 295 feet underground beneath a mountain. Israel is thought to have neither the munitions nor the aircraft to destroy it from the air, while the U.S. does. 

Washington, however, has yet to make clear if it will take part in the offensive on Iran, though it has shot down Iranian missiles headed for Israel in the last few days. Hanegbi said that he does not believe the Trump administration has made a decision on the matter yet.

Hanegbi denied that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked the U.S. to join Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear sites: “We didn’t ask and we won’t ask. We will leave it to the Americans to make such dramatic decisions about their own security. We think only they can decide.”

“We are very careful and the prime minister is very careful not to ask for anything the Americans do not think is in their interest,” he said. 

When the IDF presented its plan to the Israeli Security Cabinet a year ago, Hanegbi said, it was for the operation against Iran to be carried out by Israel alone. He called the plan “totally blue and white.”

However, Israel did ask the U.S. for help with its defense, because it has the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system, he said.

Hanegbi said that the U.S. is not only committed to protecting Israeli lives, but to the hundreds of thousands of American citizens living in Israel.

As to reports that President Donald Trump rejected an Israeli plan to kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Hanegbi said they are “fake from the land of fake.”

“We don’t ask for permission from the U.S., and the U.S. doesn’t expect us to share [our plans] with them,” Hanegbi said.

Regime change is not Israel’s goal, the national security advisor said.

“I think every sane person, not only in Israel, would be happy to see this loathsome, murderous, cruel regime fall and be replaced by peace-loving people. Can we set that as a goal for ourselves? No,” Hanegbi said. 

While Hanegbi acknowledged that “the best way to remove the nuclear threat is for there to be a regime that does not want a nuclear weapon,” he said “that is not something we can attain kinetically right now.”

In addition, Hanegbi said the mullahs’ regime could fall as a result of “the process in which Iran lost its grip on the Shiite axis that was crazed in wanting to harm Israel,” but added that “it is not reasonable to think it will happen in the coming days.”

Hanegbi also expressed doubts that Iran would negotiate its surrender soon and said Israel did not receive any messages that Iran wants to hold talks to end the war.

“The Iranians are a proud people,” he said. “I don’t think they will wave the white flag at the beginning of the campaign.”

As such, he added, “we will continue with our plan. It will take time. We have many varied targets.”

Hanegbi said that Iranian gas fields and its energy sector “do not have immunity,” and that Israel struck an oil refinery used by the military within the last day.

Iran has “a strategic goal to strike our energy facilities,” he said. “They want to cause chaos in Israel. When they hit refineries in Haifa, they know what they’re doing.”

President Donald Trump on Monday criticized Iran’s continued demands on uranium enrichment as part of the terms of a nuclear deal with the United States.

Trump made the comments while speaking to reporters from the State Dining Room about his phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day. Trump said the call went “very well” but declined to offer specifics beyond acknowledging that Iran was “the main topic.” He also added that the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon were also discussed. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the call lasted around 40 minutes. 

“They [Iran] are good negotiators, but they’re tough. Sometimes they can be too tough, that’s the problem. So we’re trying to make a deal so that there’s no destruction and death. We told them that. I have told them that. I hope that is the way it works out. It might not work out,” Trump said.

Asked what the main impediment to getting a deal with Iran is, Trump replied: “They’re just asking for things that you can’t do. They don’t want to give up what they have to give up, you know what that is. They seek enrichment, we can’t have enrichment. We want just the opposite. And so far, they’re not there. I hate to say that because the alternative is a very, very dire one, but they’re not there. They have given us their thoughts on the deal and I’ve said it’s just not acceptable.”

Netanyahu convened a meeting of his security cabinet immediately following the Monday morning call, for which neither the White House nor the Prime Minister’s Office offered readouts. 

Nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran have been ongoing since March. Trump said that negotiators will meet next on Thursday. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Monday that Tehran plans to send the U.S. a counteroffer to the proposal the Trump administration presented in the “coming days.”

A new bipartisan letter sent Friday by 16 House lawmakers to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff argues that any nuclear deal with Iran must permanently dismantle its capacity to enrich uranium — a notable message particularly from pro-Israel Democrats to the administration.

The letter highlights that an insistence on full dismantlement of Iran’s enrichment capabilities is not only a Republican position, and that President Donald Trump will not be able to count on unified Democratic support for a deal that falls short of that benchmark. Previously, 177 House Republicans said they also demand a deal that does not allow enrichment and some pro-Israel Democrats have expressed the view individually.

“We wholeheartedly agree that Iran must not retain any capacity to enrich uranium or continue advancing its nuclear weapons infrastructure,” the letter, which frames the appeal as an endorsement of Rubio and Witkoff’s public positions on the subject, states. “There is widespread bipartisan support for this requirement and we appreciate your commitment to this essential cornerstone of any agreement.”

The letter highlights the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which mandates that any agreement with Iran be submitted for congressional review, and emphasizes, “for any agreement to endure, it must have strong bipartisan support. We urge you to engage with Congress as negotiations proceed to ensure that any final agreement commands broad support.”

The lawmakers called on the officials to work with the U.S.’ European allies to “promptly invoke the snapback mechanism” to reimpose United Nations sanctions on Iran if talks fail to yield an agreement that fully dismantles Iran’s nuclear program.

They note that, given the Oct. 18 expiration of the snapback provision, “the process must begin by late Summer at the latest if no deal is reached. Iran’s repeated violations must be met with clear consequences.”

“The Iranian regime must understand that the United States is unwavering in its demand that Iran’s uranium enrichment capability be totally dismantled,” the letter reiterates. “We appreciate your leadership on this pressing matter vital to America’s national security interests and stand ready to work in a bipartisan manner to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

The letter, led by Reps. Laura Gillen (D-NY) and Claudia Tenney (R-NY), was co-signed by Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY), Wesley Bell (D-MO), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Don Bacon (R-NE), Eugene Vindman (D-VA), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Grace Meng (D-NY), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Chris Pappas (D-NH).

Pappas is also mounting a run for the U.S. Senate.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested he was open to Iran maintaining a civil nuclear program and did not explicitly rule out allowing the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium itself, even as he expressed concern about such activity in an interview with The Free Press’ Bari Weiss on Wednesday.

“If Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries in the world have one, meaning they can import enriched material,” Rubio told Weiss on the Free Press’ “Honestly” podcast. “But if they insist on enriching uranium themselves, then they will be the only country in the world that ‘doesn’t have a weapons program’ but is enriching,” he added. “I think that’s problematic.”

Rubio’s comments came as the Trump administration faces scrutiny over its mixed messaging amid ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran. 

Most notably, Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, suggested last week that the U.S. was willing to allow Iran to maintain some level of nuclear enrichment, as it did in the original 2015 nuclear deal. But he soon walked back his remarks and said the administration is instead demanding Iran eliminate its enrichment program entirely.

The lack of clarity has raised concerns among foreign policy hawks who opposed the deal brokered by the Obama administration that had allowed Iran to continue its uranium enrichment up to 3.67% — which critics viewed as a pathway to a nuclear weapon. Trump pulled out of the original deal during his first term.

Rubio, who opposed the first nuclear deal with Iran, did little to elucidate how renewed talks would help deliver a different agreement, even as he hinted at some subtle distinctions in his interview with The Free Press. 

“Without using the word dismantlement, and perhaps more subtly, the secretary pointed out that Iranian domestic enrichment remains the problem,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who specializes in Iran, told Jewish Insider. “We will have to wait and see if this problem is reflected both in the marching orders special envoy Witkoff has received as well as what are the contours of any technical framework offered by U.S. negotiators in Oman.”

Rubio also “reupped that the military option was on the table, but there is no clear timeline as to when such an option might enter the U.S.’ equation,” Ben Taleblu said.

“Suffice it to say that I do believe the United States has options, but we don’t want to ever get to that,” Rubio said of a possible military strike against Iran during the interview. “We really don’t.”

Rubio more broadly argued in favor of giving “peace every chance to succeed,” adding, “I don’t want to see a war. The president certainly doesn’t want to see one either.”

But he set low expectations for ultimately achieving a deal. 

“We’re a long ways away from any sort of agreement with Iran,” Rubio said. “We recognize it’s difficult and hard. Oftentimes, unfortunately, peace is. But we’re committed to achieving a peaceful outcome that’s acceptable to everyone. It may not be possible — we don’t know.”