The US-Israel military alliance faced a direct challenge from within the American administration over the Iran war. Donald Trump's top anti-terror aide, Joseph 'Joe' Kent, resigned and called the conflict a 'manipulation' by Israel.
In his resignation letter, Kent alleged that Israel 'pressured' the US into a needless conflict and accused 'high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media' of deploying a 'misinformation campaign' that manufactured the impression of imminence.
Within minutes, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gloated in a video about the alliance, and promised more 'surprises'. Trump later called Kent's resignation 'a good thing', and termed Joe Kent 'very weak on security', slamming Kent's assessment that Iran was not an imminent threat to American lives.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, persisted with a different tone and scale in his video, saying the Israel Defence Forces had killed Ali Larijani, the de facto leader of the Iranian regime, and other senior figures of the Islamic Republic.
The series of events underlined deep fissures as the war widens and drags, with Trump's own public statements being inconsistent on the war's very purpose.
