Trump rejects Iran’s peace offer and leaves door open to resuming bombing after Nov. 3 election

The Story

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Time magazine interview published Thursday that he would not accept proposals from Iran that “he wouldn’t have approved a year ago.” He also said it was “possible” he may ramp up bombing of Iran after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, but he did not provide details when asked about potential targets, saying, “I can’t tell you that because look, you know, you’re asking, where are you going to bomb?”

Trump told Time magazine that he only heard about reports concerning warnings to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the same day that the Sept. 28 interview was conducted with Time reporters, adding, “I can’t imagine this.” Trump said that if Netanyahu had been forewarned, “he would have done something about it” or “would have had people at least alert.” An Israeli newspaper had reported Netanyahu was warned by the president of the United Arab Emirates that Hamas was planning a major offensive just days before its Oct. 7, 2023 attack, and Netanyahu strongly rejected the report.

In the same interview, Trump repeatedly avoided a direct question about whether Netanyahu should be re-elected in elections later this month. Trump said he is “not involved in politics anymore,” and he touted his own record on Israel, while also saying Netanyahu shouldn’t be underestimated even if “people have written off Bibi many, many times, just like they’ve written off me many, many times.” Trump said of Netanyahu’s opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, “I don’t hear bad things about him.”

In Yemen, Iran-backed Houthi rebels clashed with government forces overnight into Thursday in residential neighbourhoods in eastern Taiz, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Mokha, which the Houthis seized last month. A main road linking Taiz and Aden was cut off due to the latest clashes, and Al-Thawra Hospital, a few kilometres from the clashes, received six bodies and 35 wounded people Thursday, according to hospital manager Abdelrahman al-Sabry.

Al-Sabry said the number of dead and wounded was similar to early September, when fighting was intense before clashes de-escalated. The renewed violence in Yemen has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands, and the Houthis’ seizure of Mokha and several Red Sea islands last month ended a 2022 ceasefire that largely stopped major fighting in Yemen’s 12-year civil war.

Elsewhere in the region, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned Britain’s ambassador in Tehran on Thursday to “strongly protest” British allegations linking Iran to a sabotage plot at RAF Fairford, which British Prime Minister Andy Burnham had raised. The ministry dismissed the allegations as “baseless” and called on the British government to provide an official explanation and change its approach toward Iran, while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that the U.K. was “barking up the wrong tree.”

In comments reported Thursday, Netanyahu said the suspect in the FlyDubai incident was an Omani national who got through a loophole in Israeli constraints barring pilots from countries like Oman that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. Netanyahu said both countries are “interested in making sure this doesn’t happen again,” and he warned that “it might be attempted again because we have indications that Iran and its proxies are trying to conduct attacks against Israel and Israelis right now in this election season.” A passenger aboard the FlyDubai flight, Yaniv Hayoun, said after arriving in Tel Aviv Wednesday night that the two British pilots who landed the aircraft were sitting “one row in front of me, row six, and I was in row seven.”