Middle East & North Africa
Hegseth makes a surprise visit to Israel and meets Netanyahu eight days before the election
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday, October 19 and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eight days before Israel’s October 27 election, as the Iran file stays at the centre.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday, October 19, and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The visit was first revealed by Axios, and CBS News confirmed it on Tuesday morning from a senior US military official and a second source in Israel. The Pentagon declined to comment.
Hegseth himself posted photographs that evening with US service members, writing that it was an “honour” to visit “our warfighters at CENTCOM”, whom he called “the best of our country, on a historic mission”. The post does not name the location, and the Israeli prime minister’s office had not made the meeting public by Tuesday morning.
Eight days before the election
The visit comes eight days before Israel’s October 27 parliamentary election and one day after Donald Trump’s public “Complete and Total” support for Netanyahu. The US president called him a “great warrior prime minister” and an “even greater partner for peace” in dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Likud faces centrist rivals at the polls, among them the party of former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. Last month Jared Kushner told a conference in Kyiv that Israelis “just have a crazy election, and that makes them a bit unreasonable on some issues”.
Iran at the centre
Iran is at the centre. Netanyahu said last week in Israeli media that he does not plan new strikes on Iran before the election, saying it “is not convenient for us”. Trump, for his part, says he is weighing whether to make a deal with Tehran’s leadership or to “obliterate” the country, a decision that may come after the US midterm elections in November. Hegseth warned two days ago that Iran must choose “very quickly” between the table and “destruction”.
Israel and the US launched joint strikes on Iran in late February, while in June 2025 US forces had hit three Iranian nuclear facilities. The Pentagon chief’s visit to the CENTCOM area of responsibility comes as the US naval blockade of Iranian ports continues and as the Houthis keep attacking Saudi Arabia.
