National Security Council chief Meir Ben Shabbat will leave for Washington in the coming days to meet with his US counterpart, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
According to Israel Hayom, the visit will be very short, lasting several hours, and will take place at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Following the meeting, Ben Shabbat will return to Israel.
In recent months, Ben Shabbat and Sullivan have held several digital meetings, focusing mainly on Iran.
In addition to Ben Shabbat's planned trip, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen is also expected to visit the US this week, to meet with the CIA chief and other senior intelligence officials in the US. Their meeting is expected to focus on damage control and possibly to completely end the "Iran deal," if at all possible.
IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi was scheduled to join Cohen and Ben Shabbat on their trip to Washington, but an IDF spokesman confirmed that due to the recent developments in Gaza, Kochavi will postpone his trip.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a meeting on the issue of Israel's strategy regarding the Iran deal. A diplomatic source said afterwards that the instruction to senior defense officials traveling to Washington was to express opposition to the Iran agreement and not to discuss its details, since the US' return to the deal would be dangerous to Israel and the Middle East.
According to that source, if Iran in the future wishes to hold serious talks about changing the agreement, Israel will express its opinion on the details and content which such an agreement would need to include. The source added that Netanyahu emphasized in the meeting that Israel is not a party to the agreement and not obligated to uphold it.
Another source said that in addition to the opposition to the agreement, the Israeli representatives will suggest refraining from fully removing sanctions on Iran, and instead offering to remove a sanction in exchange for Iran ending a violation of the agreement.
The Israelis are also expected to propose closer supervision on Iran, so that there is supervision "in every place, at every time," without prior warning. Though the original agreement allows for supervision, it also requires that three weeks' warning be given before an international delegation is allowed to visit.