Skip to main content

← Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid

Ynet: A commando raid in Iran? The options presented to Trump, and the destroyer in Eilat port

On 30 January 2026, Ynet, a major Israeli news site, published in Hebrew פשיטת קומנדו באיראן? האפשרויות שהוצגו לטראמפ - והמשחתת שבנמל אילת. The byline is יואב זיתון, Yoav Zitun. The page says it was first published at 7:46 that morning. An American family should care because the most dangerous option in the menu, as Ynet retells it from The New York Times, was sending American commando units secretly onto Iranian soil to hit nuclear sites the June strikes had missed. The same article says President Donald Trump had not approved any option.

Background for new readers: This article is from 30 January 2026, a month before the United States and Israel began a joint air war on Iran on 28 February 2026. At this point Iran had been shaken by mass protests, and the US was massing ships in the region. Eight months earlier, in June 2025, US bombers had hit Iran's nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. This article is filed under Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid; the full article index lists every article on this shelf.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. This is Ynet's military correspondent retelling American officials quoted by The New York Times. The Times article was not opened separately.

What the article says​

Ynet says American officials, quoted in The New York Times, described a wider list of military options against Iran, shown to Trump in recent days. The aims, it says, were to do more damage to Iran's nuclear and missile sites, or to weaken Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The subheading calls the most dangerous item the sending of ground forces to strike the nuclear facilities. The body is more specific.

האפשרות המסוכנת ביותר, לפי הדיווח, כוללת שליחת כוחות קומנדו אמריקניים בחשאי כדי להשמיד או לגרום נזק חמור לחלקים מתוכנית הגרעין האיראנית שטרם נפגעו בתקיפות האמריקניות ביוני האחרון.

That is Ynet, 30 January 2026, describing what the Times report said. Ynet adds that American forces have trained for years for this kind of raid, including entering countries such as Iran to hit nuclear sites or other sensitive targets. It says Trump has long been wary of sending American ground forces. It says he has repeatedly cited, as a reason for caution, President Jimmy Carter's failed 1980 attempt to rescue 52 American hostages held in Iran.

Ynet says the officials stressed that Trump had not yet approved military action, despite forces already sent to the Middle East, including the aircraft carrier Lincoln, and that he had not picked from the list. It says he remained open to a diplomatic solution. It says some of the officials conceded that threats of military action were meant to push Iran to the negotiating table. It says he had been weighing whether regime change was even a workable option.

Other items on the same list, as Ynet describes them, are not a commando raid. One is a series of strikes on military and leadership targets, meant to shake the country enough that security forces or others might remove Khamenei. Ynet says it is unclear who would rule, or whether a successor would be more open to the United States. It says the Times noted, among Trump's motives for that option, Iranian leaders' attempts to kill him. It says federal prosecutors in New York said the year before that Iranians had discussed a plan to assassinate Trump, shortly before he was elected a second time. That is Ynet's attribution of the prosecutors. This page does not restate it as a proven plot.

Ynet says Israel was pushing a third option: that the United States join Israel in a renewed strike on Iran's ballistic-missile program, which intelligence officials said had been largely rebuilt since the 12-day war. That option, as described here, is an air strike, not American infantry in Iran.

The page also reports a ship movement. It says the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Delbert D. Black docked in Eilat that morning, as part of American preparations for a strike on Iran. It says Israel claimed the opposite about the purpose of the visit: the destroyer was docking as a routine, pre-planned activity, and as part of cooperation between the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. military. Ynet says the ship had been seen the day before yesterday sailing through the Suez Canal toward the Gulf of Eilat, and that it was one of at least ten American warships then in the Middle East, including the Lincoln and the destroyers Michael Murphy, Frank Petersen, and Spruance.

Ynet says the new list went beyond what Trump had considered two weeks earlier, when he was looking at ways to stop Iranian security forces and allied militias from killing protesters. It says the current list included raids on sites inside Iran. It says that during the protests the administration had considered strikes on the nuclear program and on symbolic targets, then set military action aside after Iran announced it was canceling hundreds of planned executions and after Arab states asked him to delay any strike. It says reports also said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked Trump for that delay.

Ynet says officials compared the pressure campaign to Venezuela, where the United States massed forces for months and later seized Nicolás Maduro after he would not leave. It says an American official noted that Trump and his senior advisers know any action in Iran would be much more complicated. It says the officials remain skeptical that Tehran will accept U.S. terms: a permanent end to all uranium enrichment, giving up existing nuclear stocks, limits on ballistic missiles, and an end to support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen.

What other reporting adds​

The same month, other signals. On 9 January, a post citing a Tactical Report newsletter said Trump asked on social media, "When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?" (Tactical Report on X; research capture: twitter/t13__v153.md). On 15 January, the Jewish news account Belaaz reported that "President Donald Trump reportedly told Tehran that Washington had no plans to attack" (Belaaz on X; research capture: twitter/t50__v599.md). Around the same time, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin was quoted relaying a senior US official saying there was "no plus up of forces" in the region, as an X trending summary put it (research capture: twitter/t54__v637.md).

A rumor that US commandos were already inside. On 9 January, one account posted that, "As per the Murmurs in the Iranian Groups (Pro Khomeni)," teams from the 5th Special Forces Group "have Infiltrated into Iran From the Iraq Borders." (@braddy_Codie05 on X; research capture: twitter/t49__v587.md). The post calls its own source "murmurs." Nothing else in the captures confirms it. The first US ground presence in Iran that a US commander later acknowledged was the April 2026 airman rescue, described as the first in 46 years (see US forces rescue missing F-15 crew member).

What it shows​

A month before the war began, the menu shown to the President already included American commandos sent secretly onto Iranian soil. Israel, per Ynet, was pushing its own option: that the United States join a renewed strike on Iran's missile program. American warships were gathering, one of them docking in Israel's port of Eilat.

The pattern of the whole war is here in January: Israel asks the United States to join its strike, and the ground option on the table is American. Four weeks later the joint air war began. See Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid and Pentagon Ground Plans 2026.

Check it yourself​

The byline יואב זיתון is Yoav Zitun, Ynet's military correspondent, as identified on his Hebrew Wikipedia entry, https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/יואב_זיתון . The New York Times article this page relies on was not opened separately.

Status: Yoav Zitun is alive. Donald Trump is alive. Benjamin Netanyahu is alive. This page reports what Ynet says officials said. It does not accuse them of a crime.

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

Last updated on