The Trump administration notified Israel it is sending dozens more refueling planes to the country ahead of a potential expansion of military operations against Iran, three US and Israeli officials told Axios on Friday. The officials said US President Donald Trump could order an escalation in the coming days. Trump was presented with several new military plans in a Situation Room meeting on Tuesday. Among the options being considered are bombing Iranian infrastructure facilities like power plants, conducting more attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities in order to bury Iran's enriched uranium even deeper, and bombing the Pickaxe Mountain underground site that is suspected to be a facility in the making, according to Axios. On Thursday, the US military conducted strikes against Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz and the southern coast of Iran for the fifth day in a row. A US official said the military bombed at least seven bridges around the city of Bandar Abbas, which is considered a hub for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operations in the Strait of Hormuz. Ammunition, supplies and reinforcements go through Bandar Abbas to other parts of the strait, he said. Iran also escalated attacks targeting US bases in Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq and Kuwait. The IRGC also claimed it attacked an American base in Syria, although US troops withdrew from the base several months ago. The US currently has about 30 military refueling planes at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv and around the same number in Ramon Airport in southern Israel. Israeli officials say the US military prefers operating the refueling planes from Ben Gurion Airport, because other air bases in the region are more exposed to Iranian attacks and less safe for US planes.
