Israeli officials are preparing to brief Donald Trump on options for possible new military strikes on Iran, citing concerns that Tehran is expanding its ballistic missile program, NBC News reported on Saturday.
“They are preparing to make the case during an upcoming meeting with Trump that it poses a new threat,” NBC News said, citing a person with direct knowledge of the plans and four former US officials briefed on the matter.
Israeli officials believe Iran is rebuilding facilities linked to ballistic missile production and repairing air defenses damaged in earlier strikes, which they view as more urgent than nuclear enrichment efforts, NBC reported.
“The nuclear weapons program is very concerning. There’s an attempt to reconstitute. It’s not that immediate,” one person familiar with the plans told NBC, referring to Iran’s nuclear activities.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to raise the issue when he meets Trump later this month, including options for US support or participation in any future action, the report said.
Trump's warning
Trump has repeatedly said US strikes in June destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities and warned Tehran against trying to rebuild.
“If they do want to come back without a deal, then we’re going to obliterate that one, too,” Trump said earlier this month. “We can knock out their missiles very quickly.”
A White House spokesperson said the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran had corroborated the US assessment that the strikes “totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
June strikes and inspections dispute
Israel launched strikes on Iran on June 13, targeting nuclear facilities, senior military figures and scientists, accusing Tehran of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program. The US followed with strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22.
Iran, which denied the accusations, responded with missile attacks including on a US base in Qatar.
The episode comes as the IAEA presses Iran for access to damaged nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, saying it must decide whether the sites are inaccessible, a demand Tehran has rejected as unreasonable.
“The simplest task is to build a nuclear bomb, because it does not need fuel control and explodes at once,” Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Saturday, calling it much simpler than developing a nuclear power plant.
“Building a nuclear power plant, which needs control of fuel and reaction levels, is difficult and technical.”
Kamalvandi said Iran has reached "the edge of power in the nuclear field, and there is no unknown issue left for us."
Before a 12-day war in June that culminated in US airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities and paused any uranium enrichment in Iran, the country was enriching uranium to near weapons-grade purity levels.
While Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, the United States and Western countries want Iran to end uranium enrichment, arguing that enrichment beyond 20% has no civilian purpose.
UN inspections
The UN nuclear watchdog has resumed inspection activities in Iran but remains unable to access several of the country’s most sensitive nuclear sites following June strikes, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said last week.
“We are only allowed to access sites that were not hit,” he said, calling the resumption important but insufficient.
Grossi said Iran cannot unilaterally decide whether inspectors may enter the damaged facilities.
“If they say it is unsafe and inspectors cannot go there, then inspectors must be allowed to confirm that this is indeed the case,” Grossi said in an interview with Russian state media. “That determination has to be made by the agency.”
Kamalvandi, however, says the UN nuclear watchdog's requests are unreasonable.
“The agency’s insistence that access and inspections take place strictly under a safeguards agreement written for non-war conditions is unreasonable,” he said.
Kamalvandi said Iran believes the current safeguards framework cannot be applied in the same way after military attacks.
“This framework was written for ordinary circumstances,” he said. “When nuclear facilities and materials are damaged in a military attack, the conditions are different.”
He said granting access to Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan while security threats persist could endanger Iran, and added that Tehran is considering other ways to account for nuclear material without inspectors entering the sites.
The standoff follows the June war that began with Israeli strikes on June 13 on nuclear facilities, senior military figures and nuclear scientists, followed by the US attacks on June 22.
Grossi said the three sites at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan bombed by the US are central to uranium processing, conversion and enrichment, but stressed that Iran’s nuclear program extends well beyond them.
“Iran has much more than these three facilities,” he said. “It has a very developed nuclear program, with research activities and many other sites.”
He cited Iran’s operating nuclear power plant at Bushehr and plans for additional reactors, including projects with Russia, adding: “Work continues in all these areas.”
The IAEA has long sought answers from Iran over past nuclear activities and the whereabouts of undeclared nuclear material, issues Grossi has said cannot be resolved without access to relevant sites.
Aqil Keshavarz, a student at Shahroud University and a native of Isfahan, was executed after his death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court, the judiciary said.
The announcement was made by Mizan News Agency, the judiciary’s official outlet, which said the sentence was implemented “after legal procedures were completed.”
Keshavarz’s family had held their final visit with him on Friday at Urmia Central Prison. In the hours leading up to the execution, student groups and human rights organizations had warned that authorities appeared poised to carry out the sentence, citing his transfer to solitary confinement.
Conflicting accounts of arrest and detention
Rights groups reported that Keshavarz was arrested earlier this year during heightened security measures linked to the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. He was transferred to solitary confinement on December 17 in preparation for execution.
The family was summoned from Isfahan on Thursday for what officials described as a final visit, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network said. According to a source cited by the group, Keshavarz’s mother fainted during the in-person meeting due to severe emotional distress.
Iran’s judiciary has provided conflicting information about the arrest. While rights groups previously identified the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps intelligence organization as the arresting body, Mizan reported that Keshavarz was detained by an army protection patrol, without specifying an exact date.
In its report, Mizan described Keshavarz as an “agent of Mossad and the Israeli military,” accusing him of espionage, intelligence cooperation with Israel and photographing military and security sites.
Human rights organizations rejected the official narrative, saying Keshavarz was subjected to coercive interrogations. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that he was tortured for a week in an IRGC intelligence detention center in Urmia to extract a forced confession, before being transferred to Evin Prison and later back to Urmia.
Broader crackdown and international criticism
The execution triggered widespread condemnation on social media and renewed scrutiny of Iran’s use of capital punishment in security-related cases. The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said at least 17 people have been executed in Iran since the start of 2025 on charges related to alleged cooperation with Israel, most of them after the recent war.
Iranian authorities have said more than 700 people were detained on suspicion of espionage or collaboration with Israel following the conflict.