Published On 4/7/2026
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper revealed – today, Saturday – that the Israeli intelligence services rejected a request from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign a document supporting an official narrative stating the complete destruction of the Iranian nuclear program.
The Israeli newspaper said that Netanyahu’s office exerted pressure on security, intelligence and military bodies to issue an assessment confirming the complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, which supports a narrative announced by US President Donald Trump following the US strikes on Iran in June 2025.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, “On the morning of June 25 last year, from behind a closed door to the office of a senior Israeli intelligence official, loud screaming sounds were heard.” This came a few hours after the end of the first round of the 12-day attack on Iran in June 2025, following a decision taken by the American President.
The newspaper explained that the attack on Iran was followed by a state of confusion in Israeli and American circles.
Israel, with American support, launched – between June 13 and 24, 2025 – a massive attack targeting Iranian military and nuclear facilities, in addition to assassinating military leaders and nuclear scientists, while Tehran responded by launching hundreds of missiles and drones towards military and intelligence targets inside Israel.
Different ratings
In the second week of the confrontation, the United States entered directly into the operational line by targeting the Natanz, Fordo, and Isfahan nuclear sites, before international mediation led by Qatar succeeded in reaching a ceasefire on June 24, 2025.
According to the newspaper, after the end of the operations, both Trump and Netanyahu quickly announced what they described as a “historic victory,” as Trump confirmed that Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities had been “completely destroyed,” while Netanyahu said that the threats of the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missiles had been removed “for generations to come.”
However, the newspaper confirmed that Israeli intelligence assessments did not agree with those statements, as it concluded that the damage was significant but not complete, and that it was not possible at that stage to confirm the end of the Iranian nuclear program.
She added that an internal US Department of Defense intelligence report – published by the New York Times two days after the strikes – reached a similar conclusion, indicating that the damage to the nuclear facilities was not decisive or final, which angered the White House, according to the newspaper.
Resorting to Netanyahu
Yedioth Ahronoth said that the White House tried to support its story with an assessment issued by an Israeli party, which prompted Netanyahu’s office to put pressure on officials in the army and intelligence services to issue a document confirming the destruction of the nuclear facilities, but a number of senior intelligence officials refused to sign the document.
The newspaper quoted one of the officials as saying that he refused to approve an assessment that was not based on professional data, warning that “the truth will eventually be revealed,” and that intelligence services are obligated to maintain professional and ethical standards.
According to the newspaper, an argument broke out inside one of the offices of Israeli intelligence leaders, where one of the officials said to his boss: “I cannot sign this.”
He said: “If the truth is revealed one day, and it will be revealed, no party will protect us, and in the end we are the ones who will pay the price. What is my fault if Netanyahu or Trump boasted about achievements that any child knows were not possible to achieve, and in fact they were not achieved? Then we do not even have the necessary data to assess the extent of the real damage before completing the damage assessment of the strike.”
Atomic Energy Commission
The newspaper indicated that the Director General of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Brigadier General Moshe Adri, agreed to prepare the document, but he faced rejection from the chief scientist in the committee and a number of senior officials, who considered the text to be “significantly distorted.”
After negotiations, a modified version was adopted in English, stating that the US strikes destroyed vital infrastructure at the Fordow facility and rendering the enrichment facility unusable, and estimated that the US and Israeli strikes set the Iranian nuclear program back “many years,” without confirming its complete destruction.
The newspaper added that the scientists insisted on including a concluding paragraph confirming that this achievement will only remain in place “if Iran does not obtain access to nuclear materials,” in reference to Tehran’s continued possession of quantities of fissile material.
According to the newspaper, scientists were aware that Iran’s retention of about 440 kilograms of fissile material, an amount sufficient to produce about 11 nuclear bombs, makes the claim that the Iranian nuclear program was completely destroyed inaccurate.
