Trump Said No Hormuz Deal Exists, and the Israeli Press Split on Whether to Print the Caveat

Speaking to reporters on 6 August, Trump said no deal has yet been reached with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and that Washington will maintain its blockade of Iranian ports in the meantime. His characterisation: “We’re doing very well. I’m involved in the negotiation. I think we’re doing fine. It could be soon.” Israel National News rendered the same session on its 7 August homepage as: “President Trump predicts the war with Iran will end soon, stating that negotiations are going well and a deal to secure the Strait of Hormuz could be near.” The Times of Israel’s 6 August liveblog led instead on Iran’s Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf mocking Trump for repeatedly walking back military threats, and carried the standfirst into 7 August. The verbatim Ghalibaf line has not been sourced to an Iranian original.

On munitions the divergence is sharper. Trump again claimed the US has an “unlimited supply” of missiles, adding “We’re in great shape, but we always want more.” The Times of Israel set the quote explicitly against “mounting reports that Washington is actually running out of them.” The load-bearing figure behind those reports — that the US Army’s THAAD stockpile was depleted by nearly 80 percent during the war — reached Haaretz’s 5 August liveblog prefixed “Report:”, with no original publisher identified in the indexed text. Amit Segal, writing in Israel Hayom on 6 August, took the number as settled and argued a war of a few weeks had left the US military “in a position similar to that of the IDF before Oct. 7.”

The commercial terms remain two anonymous chains pointing opposite ways. A senior Iranian official, unnamed, told the Times of Israel Tehran is seeking 5–7 percent of cargo value from ships transiting the strait, with Oman discussing around 3 percent and Washington wanting no fees at all; the International Maritime Organization told ToI it could not comment. On 4 August, two regional officials told the Associated Press ships would enter through an Iranian-controlled route and exit through an Omani one, with service fees for security and environmental protection. An anonymous US official said any temporary routes would involve no Iranian approvals or charges, and that Washington remains committed to a status quo in which “no party controls the lanes or the ability to transit through them.”

Assessment: Two Israeli newsrooms heard the same president say a deal does not exist and filed it as, respectively, imminence and humiliation — the split tracks their readerships, not the transcript. The Segal column shows the mechanism that matters: a percentage that entered Haaretz labelled “Report:” with no named originator is a load-bearing premise in Israel Hayom’s magazine within a day, and from there it becomes an argument about American reliability. Note what nobody in the Israeli press has produced: a named source for either the 80 percent or the 5–7 percent. The Turkey–Saudi–Pakistan defence signing said to occur today rests on two regional sources to Reuters. Wait for the signature.