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לוחמי הקומנדו הצטרפו לכוחות הקרקעיים: ״טראמפ שוקל לחלץ את האורניום״ — The commandos joined the ground forces: "Trump is weighing extracting the uranium"

On 30 March 2026, the Israeli news site Ynet published לוחמי הקומנדו הצטרפו לכוחות הקרקעיים: ״טראמפ שוקל לחלץ את האורניום״. The page's author field is ynet, with no reporter name. The article says President Donald Trump is considering a ground operation inside Iran to remove enriched uranium, and that American commandos have joined other U.S. troops already in the region. An American family should care because the story is about whether U.S. soldiers might be sent onto Iranian soil for days. The same page says he has not given that order.

Background for a new reader. The United States and Israel began bombing Iran on 28 February 2026; Washington calls its part Operation Epic Fury. Through March the argument in Washington was whether to add ground troops, meaning American soldiers physically inside Iran, to what had been an air and sea war. Israeli outlets, writing in Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, French and English, followed that argument closely and often passed on American reports to their readers. This page is one of those reports.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. The claim being rated is that the United States might put forces on Iranian ground to seize uranium, and that more American troops were gathering in the region for possible ground missions. Ynet attributes the uranium idea to senior American officials speaking to the Wall Street Journal, and the troop movements to the New York Times.

What the article says

Ynet's lead states the consideration in one sentence, and says the Journal heard it from senior American officials.

נשיא ארה״ב דונלד טראמפ שוקל להורות על חילוץ כחצי טון של אורניום מועשר משטח איראן, במבצע צבאי מורכב ומסוכן שבמסגרתו כוחות הצבא האמריקני עשויים לשהות במדינה במשך ימים - ואף יותר מכך.

Ynet, 30 March 2026. Translated: President Trump is considering an order to extract about half a ton of enriched uranium from Iran, in a dangerous operation during which U.S. forces might stay for days, or longer. The deck just above the story uses a different figure. It says the Journal reported a complex operation to remove about 400 kilograms of fissile material buried at sites bombed the previous June. Those two numbers are not the same. Half a ton is 500 kilograms. Ynet does not explain the gap.

Ynet says the officials told the Journal that Trump had not decided whether to give the order, and that he was weighing whether recovering the uranium was worth the danger to Americans on the ground. They described him as still generally open to the idea, because it might serve his main stated goal, stopping Iran from being able to build a nuclear weapon. Ynet says he urged advisers to press Iran to hand over the uranium as a condition for ending the war, and that he told political allies Iran cannot keep the enriched material. Ynet quotes Trump telling reporters that night, about the enriched uranium, that they are going to give up nuclear weapons and are going to give the United States the nuclear dust.

Ynet says Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt are mediating, and that Trump said direct talks with Iran on ending the war were also underway. It quotes White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt: it is the Pentagon's job to prepare plans so the commander in chief has the maximum options, and that does not mean the president has made a decision.

Ynet says that before the 12-day war in June of the previous year, the United States and Israel believed Iran held more than 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, and almost 200 kilograms enriched to 20 percent, which can be brought up to weapons grade more easily. Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. body that inspects nuclear sites, said he believes most of the uranium is at two of the three sites the United States and Israel struck in June: a tunnel at the Isfahan nuclear complex, and another store at Natanz. Ynet says experts warned that Iran still has centrifuges and could build a new underground enrichment site.

Ynet says Trump and some associates privately described a focused seizure that would not stretch the war much, and could still let the United States end the conflict by mid-April. It says he has told colleagues he does not want a long war, while some senior advisers want him on domestic issues, including the coming midterm elections, where polls show Republicans could take heavy losses. It says he told a Miami audience the previous Friday that the uranium stockpile was the main reason the war started.

Ynet then describes what a ground seizure would take, attributing the picture to former U.S. officers and experts. Teams would have to fly to the nuclear sites, probably under fire from Iranian surface-to-air missiles and drones. After landing they would have to hold several perimeters so engineers with heavy digging equipment could search the rubble, and so mines and booby traps could be found and destroyed. An elite team trained for the radioactive material would move it. Ynet says the United States estimates the enriched uranium is in 40 to 50 special containers. Richard Nephew, a senior researcher at Columbia University who previously took part in talks with Iran on its nuclear program, said the amount Iran had accumulated could fill several trucks. The operation would also need an improvised airfield for the heavy gear and, at the end, for flying the material out. Experts told the paper it would take days, maybe a week. Ynet quotes former U.S. Central Command commander Gen. Joseph Votel saying this is not a job you can enter and leave quickly. Central Command is the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.

Ynet says the United States could skip the raid if it left the uranium with Iran, or if Iran agreed to hand it over to end the war. It notes earlier handovers of enriched material from Kazakhstan in 1994 and from Georgia about four years later. It says the Pentagon already has many of the needed forces and tools in the region if Trump so orders, and that posting another 10,000 soldiers is being considered, to give him more options. That 10,000 is described as under consideration, not as troops who have moved.

A second section says two American military officials told the New York Times that several hundred U.S. special-operations troops had arrived in the Middle East and joined thousands of Marines and paratroopers already in the area, in case Trump orders a ground operation. Ynet says the special forces include Army Rangers and Navy SEALs, and that they had not yet been given specific missions. The Times passage, as Ynet gives it, lists possible uses: helping to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea passage by Iran that much of the world's oil traffic uses, and which Ynet says Iran had in effect closed; trying to take Kharg Island, which the article calls the oil island; or a mission against the highly enriched uranium at the Isfahan nuclear site. Ynet says the commandos joined 2,500 Marines and another 2,500 sailors who arrived the previous weekend. In all, the Times is quoted as saying there are now more than 50,000 American troops in the Middle East, about 10,000 above the usual number, while Trump decides his next step. Ynet says the usual figure is about 40,000, spread across bases and ships in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. That total does not include 4,500 sailors on the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford, which left the area on 23 March, sailed for Crete, and reached Croatia on Friday.

Ynet says the Pentagon the previous week also ordered about 2,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, a U.S. Army paratrooper unit, to the Middle East. A military official told the Times their location is not public, but that they would be within striking distance of Iran. Ynet says they might operate on Kharg, where American jets had bombed more than 90 military targets earlier that month, or on other ground tasks with the Marines.

Ynet closes with the Washington Post. It says the Pentagon is planning ground activity that would last weeks. Discussions that month, Ynet says, covered seizing Kharg and raids on parts of the Strait of Hormuz coast, to find and destroy weapons that can hit ships. One source told the Post those aims would probably take weeks. Another estimated two months.

What other reporting and posts add

• The Journal's own figure. A 30 March 2026 news digest quotes the Wall Street Journal: Trump "is weighing a military operation to extract nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran," a mission "that would likely put American forces inside the country for days or longer." Nearly 1,000 pounds is about 450 kilograms, which sits between Ynet's "half a ton" and its "400 kilograms." The same digest quotes Vice President JD Vance, via Ynet: "We're not interested in being in Iran a year down the road, two years down the road." Digest on X. (capture: twitter/t49__v587.md)
• Israel's prime minister, in his own words. On CBS's 60 Minutes, 10 May 2026, Benjamin Netanyahu was asked how the enriched uranium would be removed. "You go in, and you take it out." Asked whose special forces, he said: "Well, I'm not gonna talk about military means, but the pres-- what President Trump has said to me, 'I want to go in there.' and I think it can be done physically." CBS transcript. (capture: twitter/t13__v145.md)
• A commentator's push. An X trending page on 29 March 2026 showed radio host Mark Levin calling for US ground troops: "We've got to get the uranium." X trend page. (capture: twitter/t49__v584.md)
• Three weeks earlier, the opposite signal. An X trending page updated 9 March 2026 summarized Trump telling the New York Post that the United States is "nowhere near" sending ground forces to Iran, "even to secure nuclear materials at the damaged Isfahan facility." That is the page's summary of the interview. X trend page. (capture: twitter/t49__v582.md)

What it shows

One Israeli page, on one day, gathers the whole ground picture. The President was weighing an operation in which US forces might stay in Iran for days or longer. Several hundred Army Rangers and Navy SEALs had arrived to join thousands of Marines and paratroopers in case he ordered a ground operation. About 2,000 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne were within striking distance, more than 50,000 American troops were in the region, and the Washington Post reported weeks of planned ground operations.

The White House answer, as Ynet gives Karoline Leavitt's words, was that preparing plans does not mean the president has made a decision. A decision is the only step left. See The Buildup and Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid.

Check it yourself

• Ynet, 30 March 2026

Research captures: twitter/t49__v587.md, twitter/t13__v145.md, twitter/t49__v584.md, twitter/t49__v582.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26