Netanyahu claims Iran wants to assassinate Trump, Trump says Khamenei is 'easy target' & demands 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Iran's regime is actively working to assassinate United States' president Donald Trump.

Enemy number one

In his first interview since Israel launched a series of strikes targeting Iran's nuclear facilities on Jun. 13, Netanyahu told Fox News on Jun. 15 that Trump is now regarded as Iran's "enemy number one" as he supposedly poses a threat to Iran's nuclear program.

"He's a decisive leader. He never took the path that others took to try to bargain with them in a way that is weak, giving them basically a pathway to enrich uranium, which means a pathway to the bomb, padding it with billions and billions of dollars", he said, referring to Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran that promised economic assistance in exchange for Iran agreeing not to pursue nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu also claimed that two assassination attempts by Iran have been made on Trump so far, allegedly "through proxies", and one on himself in the form of a missile attack that was fired through the bedroom window of his home.

Calling himself Trump's "junior partner" in deterring Iran's nuclear forces, Netanyahu again justified his country's Jun. 13 attack on Iran by saying that Israel was facing "an imminent threat" of nuclear destruction by Iran's weaponisation of nuclear arms.

"We were facing an imminent threat, a dual existential threat", he said, adding but they had no choice but to act aggressively in the "12th hour".

Easy target

Despite these claims by Netanyahu, Trump appears to be unperturbed, even claiming that it is he who holds the power of life and death over Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Reports from Jun. 15 claim that Trump prevented Israel from conducting an assassination strike on Khamenei.

On Jun. 17, he posted that "We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran", although he did not specify who he meant by "we".

At the time of writing, the U.S. had not officially or publicly joined in strikes against Iran.

Trump lauded U.S. military capability, saying that while Iran had good "sky trackers and defensive equipment, and plenty of it", none of it compared to U.S.-made "stuff".

"Nobody does it better than the good ol' USA."

About half an hour later, he took to social media again, posting that the U.S. knew where Khamenei was sheltering, calling him an "easy target".

But he assured readers that the U.S. was not going to "take him out", clarifying he meant kill for those not familiar with the lingo, at least not yet.

He specified that the U.S. did not want missiles to be shot at civilians or U.S. troops.

Unconditional surrender

In the five days since the start of hostilities, Iran has fired several missiles that have hit built-up areas of Israel, such as Tel Aviv, with CNN reporting 24 civilian casualties.

Iran has yet to directly target U.S. military facilities, and has suffered at least 224 deaths.

However, it has threatened to target U.S., French and UK military bases if they help to stop Iran from striking Israeli targets.

Trump warned that U.S. patience was wearing thin and ended his post like a disgruntled customer thanking someone, possibly Khamenei, for their attention "on this matter".

Less than five minutes later, he simply added in all caps: "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER".

While seemingly meaning Iran, Iran is not currently in direct conflict with the U.S., and Trump is not the leader of Israel, so it is not clear who should surrender to whom.

Related stories

Top image via Khamenei.ir/X, Donald Trump/Truth Social & White House/Facebook