JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: Israel’s attack on an Iranian gas field on Wednesday was coordinated with the US but was unlikely to be repeated, three Israeli officials said Wednesday, despite President Donald Trump saying he did not know about it in advance. The attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field followed Iranian air strikes on energy infrastructure in Qatar and across the Middle East, marking the largest escalation in the US-Israeli war on Iran.On Wednesday night, Trump said in a social media post that Washington “knew nothing about this particular attack”. Three Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions, said Thursday that Israel was not surprised by Trump’s comments. He described the situation as similar to what happened several weeks ago after Israel attacked a fuel depot in Iran. After those attacks, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said that “in that particular case they were not our attacks”.Trump said on Thursday that he has asked his ally, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, not to further attack gas fields in Iran. “I told him, don’t do it, and he won’t do it,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We have a very good relationship. It’s coordinated, but sometimes he does things that the United States opposes,” Trump said.In a social media post on Wednesday, Trump said Israel had “violently attacked,” attacking a “relatively small portion” of the territory. Qatar also accused Israel of attacking South Pars. “The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was not involved in any way, shape, or form, nor did it have any idea that it was about to occur,” Trump wrote. He accused Iran of retaliating “unfairly and wrongly” against Qatar’s liquefied natural gas facilities. Iran uses most of its natural gas domestically, but Qatar is the world’s third-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. The South Pars is part of a larger reservoir that is shared between Qatar and Iran.In his post, Trump vowed that there would be “no further attacks by Israel” on South Pars unless Iran attacks Qatar’s energy facilities. If that happened, he said, the US would “massively blow up” the oil field. Trump said, “I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because it will have a long-term impact on Iran’s future, but if Qatar’s LNG is attacked again, I would not hesitate to do so.”Since the Israeli attack on South Pars, Iranian attacks have caused extensive damage to the world’s largest gas plant in Qatar, targeted a refinery in Saudi Arabia and forced the United Arab Emirates to close gas facilities.Following Iran’s attacks, Gulf Arab countries sought clarification from the Trump administration, with one country contacting US Central Command, a regional source familiar with the matter said.The Pentagon’s Middle East (West Asia) command told the country it was not informed in advance about the Israeli attack, the source said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity and declined to name the country involved.That country then contacted Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, who said that although the attack was not a joint US-Israeli operation, Washington was informed about it ahead of time, the source said. Israel has not publicly accepted responsibility for the attack.The US and Israel have repeatedly tried to highlight their close coordination in their joint air strikes on Iran, but officials from both sides have acknowledged that their objectives were not the same. On Thursday, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said at a House Intelligence Committee hearing that while Israel has focused on “disabling the Iranian leadership”, the United States has focused on destroying Iran’s ballistic missile program and its navy. agencies