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As Israel prepared to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his senior defense officials disagreed over whether to notify the Biden administration ahead of the operation, fearing Washington could try to stop the mission, according to Wall Street Journal editorial writer Elliot Kaufman and a second source familiar with the deliberations.

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«140%, they won’t approve of the mission,» Netanyahu told senior Israeli defense officials, according to Kaufman, co-author of «In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel’s Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis,» who recounted the exchange in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi favored informing Washington, believing the Americans might support a strike against a Hezbollah leader linked to the deaths of U.S. service members, according to Kaufman. Netanyahu, however, warned that then-U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan would «jump out of his skin» if he learned of the plans.

The disagreement reflected a widening divide between Jerusalem and Washington over Israel’s military campaign against Iran’s regional proxies, as the Biden administration sought to prevent the fighting from escalating into a broader regional war.

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‘BIBI’S HAIR ON FIRE’: TRUMP-NETANYAHU PUBLIC ‘RIFT’ MASKED UNIFIED FRONT AGAINST IRAN, ANALYST SAYS

fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight March 10 to 11, 2026. (Fadel itani / AFP via Getty Images)

Hezbollah: Netanyahu’s warning about Washington

When Israeli jets struck Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut on September 27, 2024, the Pentagon said it had received no advance warning. Gallant spoke with then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin while the operation was already underway.

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The strike killed Nasrallah, who had led the Iranian-backed terrorist organization for more than three decades, marking a major turning point in Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, which opened a second front against Israel on October 8, 2023, a day after Hamas’ deadly attack in southern Israel, and had since launched repeated rocket and missile attacks on northern Israeli communities.

Kaufman argued that Israel had spent nearly a year waiting for American diplomacy to end Hezbollah’s attacks on its northern communities, without success.

«From Israel’s point of view, it had been sitting and waiting for 10, 11 months while Hezbollah had been pounding the north of Israel with rockets and with anti-tank missiles, waiting for American diplomacy to succeed,» he said. «It didn’t work. Something had to change on the northern front.»

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Kaufman said the confrontation exposed a fundamental difference in how the two governments approached the war.

«The United States may not have been in Israel’s war room, but it could never be denied a seat at the table when it asked,» he said.

«What I was told from the Israeli prime minister’s office is ‘America’s goal is to de-escalate the war. Our goal is to win the war,’ and we saw that clash at every point, especially during the Biden administration.»

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VP JD VANCE ADDRESSES US-ISRAEL RELATIONSHIP, WHETHER IRAN IS TRYING TO ‘PLAY’ THE UNITED STATES

Hamas fighters secure an area before handing over an Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel to a Red Cross team in Gaza City on Feb. 1, 2025, as part of the fourth hostage-prisoner exchange. Ranks of Hamas fighters formed up on Gaza’s beachfront in a show of force against the dramatic backdrop of breaking waves. (SAEED JARAS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

October 7: Netanyahu’s reluctance and the question of accountability

The book, written by Kaufman and Jerusalem Post senior military analyst Yonah Jeremy Bob, also describes how Netanyahu initially resisted launching a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, only to emerge later as one of the strongest advocates for continuing the war.

«Prime Minister Netanyahu had just seen the IDF, Israel’s military, fail miserably on Oct. 7, and Israel’s intelligence services fail miserably on October 7,» Kaufman told Fox News Digital.

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Senior American generals dispatched by President Biden also warned Israeli leaders that a ground invasion could end in military defeat, even in Gaza City, according to Kaufman.

Netanyahu eventually approved the ground operation on Oct. 27, 2023, after weeks of internal debate.

«Over time, he would gain confidence in the IDF, regain confidence in the military, in Israel’s intelligence services, and end up outlasting, exhausting, or simply firing all of his war room rivals,» Kaufman said.

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Kaufman was more critical when asked about Netanyahu’s accountability for Oct. 7.

«I have spoken to Prime Minister Netanyahu several times in person, even more on the phone. I had a three hour conversation with him extending well past midnight in Israel,» Kaufman said. «I have not heard him take responsibility for what happened on October 7th.»

Instead, Kaufman said, Netanyahu consistently points to the failure of senior military officials to alert him before the Hamas assault began. «What he says is, 6:29. They didn’t wake me up until 6:29 in the morning on the day of October 7th,» Kaufman recounted.

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Those remarks came as a new controversy erupted in Israel over the official record of Netanyahu’s actions on the morning of the attack.

In a lengthy interview broadcast Thursday by Israel’s Channel 12, retired Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, who served as Netanyahu’s military secretary at the time, said that the prime minister’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, attempted to alter the official record of a telephone call between Gil and Netanyahu.

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Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Galant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi attend a memorial ceremony marking a decade for Israeli fallen soldiers of the 2014 Gaza War also known as Operation Protective Edge, in the Hall of Remembrance at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, 16 July 2024. (Abir Sultan/Reuters)

Gil said a stenographer told him she had been instructed to change the recorded time of their first secure telephone conversation from 6:40 a.m. to 6:29 a.m. Gil said he had raised concerns about irregular recordkeeping with the attorney general’s office in real time. Braverman has acknowledged seeking to change the recorded time but denied wrongdoing.

Gil also challenged the completeness of Netanyahu’s public account of the events preceding the massacre, saying there were significant gaps between what occurred and what had been presented to the Israeli public and in his written statements.

The Likud party dismissed the alleged attempt to falsify the record, saying «the matter had been investigated by police two years earlier and that police had recommended closing the case because it lacked substance.» However, prosecutors have not announced a decision to close the case.

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Gil also said that opportunities to secure hostage agreements earlier in the war had been lost because of political considerations.

Asked by Channel 12 whether some hostages who died in captivity could have been brought home alive, Gil replied, «We could have.»

He indicated that opposition to ceasefires and hostage deals from far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition influenced the prime minister’s decisions.

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While acknowledging that senior Israeli military officials believed Netanyahu was prolonging the war for political reasons, Kaufman challenged the argument that political survival was his sole motivation, pointing to Israel’s subsequent campaigns against Hezbollah and Iran. «There were real strategic interests to be pursued,» he said.

«Almost all of the real achievements of this war came later in the war,» he said, arguing that the subsequent weakening of Hezbollah, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities complicated claims that continued fighting served only Netanyahu’s political interests.

IDF ANNOUNCES ELIMINATION OF HEZBOLLAH COMMANDER BEHIND MURDER OF 5 AMERICAN SOLDIERS

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President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced joint military action targeting Iran. (REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt)

Iran: How Israel helped convince Trump to strike

The book also examines how Israel’s early military successes against Iran helped persuade President Donald Trump to authorize U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during the 12-day war in June 2025.

Kaufman described how a Trump administration official showed him a map of Israeli airstrikes that had opened a route toward Fordow, Iran’s heavily fortified underground nuclear facility.

According to Kaufman, Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir subsequently made the case directly to Vice President JD Vance that American forces had an extraordinary opportunity to strike.

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«You have a straight shot to Iran’s nuclear sites. You will never have a better opportunity than this,» Kaufman said, recounting Zamir’s message to Vance.

Kaufman said the Israeli military chief told Vance that Israeli aircraft were already operating over the area, but that the U.S. possessed the heavy bunker-busting bombs necessary for the Fordow mission.

He credited the vice president with helping secure Trump’s final authorization for Operation Midnight Hammer.

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«Vice President Vance played a critical role in ultimately securing American participation in the highly successful 12-day war,» Kaufman said.

The account challenges the notion that Trump was reluctantly drawn into the conflict by Netanyahu, Kaufman argued, portraying the president instead as responding to an opportunity created by Israel’s demonstrated military capabilities.

The Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, recently visited Israel as the official guest of the Chief of the General Staff, LTG Eyal Zamir. The Commander of CENTCOM and the Chief of the General Staff first held an extended one-on-one meeting. This was followed by a meeting attended by additional commanders. The IDF says the meeting serves as another expression of the relationship between the commanders and constitutes an additional step in enhancing the close strategic relationship between the IDF and U.S. military and in strengthening defense cooperation between the two nations. (IDF Spokesman’s Unit.)

Jake Sullivan’s response was not received by the deadline.

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Efrat (Effie) Lachter is a reporter for Fox News Digital with more than 15 years of experience covering conflict, global affairs, human rights and political accountability. She has directed and produced more than 200 documentary segments across more than 40 countries, documenting conflicts, humanitarian crises, corruption, human trafficking, gender-based violence and the human stories behind major world events. 

Lachter’s reporting has taken her into conflict zones and crisis areas across the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa. Her work has included uncovering human trafficking networks, revealing an ISIS underground torture prison in Syria, documenting the war in Ukraine and interviewing senior political figures and world leaders. She was also among the Western journalists who entered Russia after the war began to bring testimonies from Putin’s opposition. Lachter is the recipient of the 2022 Peres Center for Peace Award and was a 2023–2024 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan. She also won two Rockower Awards for Excellence in Reporting. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communication and a master’s degree in political science.

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israel, benjamin netanyahu, hamas, foreign policy, world, war with iran

Edward Coristine, the former DOGE engineer better known as «Big Balls,» is now helping build the Trump administration’s new digital front door to the federal government — an effort aimed at giving Americans one place to navigate information and, eventually, complete services now spread across thousands of government websites.

«I think that the fact that there’s 29,000 government websites is pretty insane,» Coristine told Digital in a sit-down interview. «And it is the citizens’ objective to have to go figure out which government website they’re supposed to use for each specific thing.»

Coristine — better known around Washington by his attention-grabbing «Big Balls» nickname — sat down with Digital at the White House to talk about his new role helping build America.gov, what he learned during his time at DOGE, the administration’s plans to make more government services fully digital, his experience being attacked in Washington, and how the nickname that helped make him famous actually came from his dad.

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Coristine is now working with the National Design Studio on the administration’s revamped America.gov, which launched Sept. 29 as an AI-powered single point of entry for information drawn from thousands of government websites. President Donald Trump singled out Coristine during the launch, identifying him as the project’s lead engineer and thanking him for his work.

Coristine said his time at DOGE gave him a firsthand look at the frustration Americans face when trying to navigate federal services and helped shape what he is working on now.

«I think we got a lot of feedback that the American government is hard to interact with because you have to navigate the maze of bureaucratic services,» Coristine said.

The software engineer had already worked in Musk’s orbit before joining DOGE, spending several months at Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company, before later joining the government efficiency effort at 19.

«What I think is really special about America.gov is it presents a single point of entry to find all the information that you need,» he added, including finding government services tailored to the user and asking questions with answers sourced from the federal government.

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Coristine pointed to Medicare as one example, saying Americans currently may have to move between Medicare.gov and the Social Security website to enroll in benefits.

«Companies, generally speaking, only have one website and everything is easy to find,» he said. «We should have the same vision for the government.»

The ambitions for America.gov also go beyond simply helping users find the right information. Coristine said the administration plans to make first-time passport applications fully digital, expanding beyond the online renewal system already available to eligible Americans.

«Specifically with passports, what we’re going to do is we’re gonna make new passports online for the first time ever,» Coristine said, describing the existing process as «very manual.»

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«You have to go in person, you have to get to the post office, you get your photo taken like a CVS or Walgreens,» he said.

Under the planned system, Coristine said users would be able to take their passport photo at home, preview how it would appear on the document and complete the process «without leaving the America.gov website.»

Coristine also offered a glimpse into how Trump has talked about the broader project, comparing the president’s approach to digital government with his background in hospitality.

«I think the president has been a great host for his entire career. He’s been in the hospitality business, right?» Coristine said. «So any great host knows they have to make things easy, they have to make it all feel clean.»

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«President Trump is very focused on removing the potholes from the digital government that make it hard to get things done,» he added.

The role marks the latest chapter in a whirlwind stint in Washington that began at DOGE and quickly thrust the 20-year-old — and his now-famous «Big Balls» nickname — into the national spotlight.

Coristine told Digital the «Big Balls» moniker had a far less dramatic origin than its eventual notoriety might suggest.

«I got the nickname Big Balls from my dad,» he said, explaining that he eventually made it his LinkedIn URL AND THIS IS WHAT DROVE IT INTO THE NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT, RIGHT?

«It was actually, like, fairly underground, but I was discovered,» Coristine said. «It’s been very funny ever since.»

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Coristine’s profile rose further in August 2025 after he was attacked while walking a female friend back to her car in Washington’s Logan Circle neighborhood, an incident that left him with a broken nose and concussion and drew national attention.

Coristine has said he rushed his friend into the car before the group turned on him, slamming him against the vehicle and throwing punches.

«I really thank President Trump for making D.C. safe again,» Coristine said. «Like all my friends, they’re now able to walk outside.»

«Everyone is very calmed by the National Guard because it feels like the city is so much safer,» he continued. «And the crime numbers totally represent that. The crime has been falling like a knife in D.C.»

Trump established the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force in March 2025 before launching an intensified federal crime crackdown in August, with the operation delivering more than 16,000 arrests, 3,200 narcotics arrests and nearly 2,000 illegal firearms seized in its first year.

«So I’m unbelievably grateful to the president for making the city safe and beautiful,» Coristine said.

doge, donald trump, artificial intelligence, politics

México se prepara para la llegada del huracán Simón, que avanza lentamente sobre el océano Pacífico con vientos sostenidos de hasta 250 kilómetros por hora y amenaza con provocar inundaciones.

El fenómeno se encontraba frente a la costa mexicana durante las primeras horas de este domingo y se esperaba que avanzara tierra adentro durante el día, con un posible impacto hacia el mediodía como ciclón de categoría 4 en la escala Saffir-Simpson, que tiene un máximo de cinco niveles.

El huracán se ubicaba a unos 100 kilómetros al oeste-suroeste de Manzanilla y se desplazaba hacia el norte-noroeste a una velocidad de apenas 9 kilómetros por hora. Desde que adquirió fuerza de huracán, su movimiento se mantuvo por debajo de los 10 kilómetros por hora, una condición que aumenta la preocupación de las autoridades por la duración de las precipitaciones.

El meteorólogo Boris Comi, de Protección Civil de Jalisco, explicó a la agencia AFP que el huracán Simón permanece prácticamente estacionario frente a las costas mexicanas. Esa lentitud podría hacer que las lluvias se prolonguen sobre las mismas zonas durante más tiempo y aumenten el peligro para la población.

El Centro Nacional de Huracanes de Estados Unidos (NHC, por sus siglas en inglés) advirtió que el ciclón podría descargar entre 25 y 50 centímetros de lluvia en sectores del suroeste de México. En algunas áreas de Michoacán, Colima y Jalisco, las precipitaciones podrían alcanzar los 76 centímetros.

El organismo alertó que las lluvias podrían causar inundaciones repentinas y deslaves potencialmente mortales, en especial en regiones de terreno escarpado. También advirtió sobre una peligrosa marejada ciclónica en la costa, cerca del punto de impacto y hacia el este, acompañada de olas grandes y destructivas.

Evacuaciones

Ante la amenaza, las autoridades de Jalisco suspendieron las clases el viernes y el lunes en 22 municipios costeros, además de disponer la interrupción de actividades no esenciales en varias localidades. También comenzaron las evacuaciones de las zonas consideradas de riesgo y solicitaron al sector turístico de Puerto Vallarta que garantizara que empleados y visitantes estuvieran alojados en refugios o lugares seguros.

El sábado, la Marina de México trasladó por barco a alrededor de un centenar de personas desde poblados costeros amenazados por el huracán hasta Puerto Vallarta. La mayoría tenía familiares con quienes refugiarse, mientras que otras fueron derivadas a alguno de los cinco albergues habilitados en la ciudad. Hasta ese día, los refugios habían recibido a 95 personas.

Entre quienes abandonaron sus hogares estuvo Elena Glumas, de 63 años, que llegó desde la localidad de Yelapa junto con sus perros. La mujer recordó los daños que sufrió su pueblo durante el paso del huracán Lidia, en 2023, y explicó por qué decidió ponerse a salvo. “Hace tres años perdimos todo, ahora digo: la vida es primero”, afirmó al bajar del ferry.

En Puerto Vallarta, comerciantes y dueños de negocios reforzaron las medidas para proteger sus locales del viento y el agua. Hoteles, tiendas y otros establecimientos tapiaron puertas y ventanas, mientras las calles comenzaron a mostrar menos movimiento bajo un cielo nublado.

Algunos comerciantes también apelaron al humor para afrontar la llegada del fenómeno. En los tablones de un negocio se leía “Simón dice: ‘todo va a estar bien’”, en alusión al juego infantil en el que los participantes deben seguir instrucciones.

Paulina Pérez, propietaria de una mueblería, escribió en su local “Simón, sé breve, pacífico” y acompañó la frase con un dibujo de un tiburón y caras sonrientes. “Es positivismo más que nada”, explicó a AFP.

El antecedente de otros huracanes en la región

La velocidad de desplazamiento de Simón es uno de los factores que más inquieta a los especialistas. Comi señaló que es probable que el ciclón acelere su movimiento una vez que toque tierra, antes de comenzar a disiparse.

De igual manera, la geografía de la región podría contribuir a reducir su intensidad. Puerto Vallarta está ubicado en una bahía y cuenta con una cadena montañosa cercana que, según las previsiones, podría atenuar la fuerza del fenómeno. El NHC también estimó que Simón podría debilitarse incluso antes de llegar a la costa.

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