Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the media on Thursday to discuss the current military operation against Iran. Speaking in English, Netanyahu provided several updates, including how the military strikes have hampered Iran’s weapons and that he was indeed alive, debunking rumors that circulated on social media that he had died.
“Welcome to the foreign press,” said Netanyahu. “First of all, I just want to say: I’m alive, and you’re all witnesses. Now that I dispatched this piece of fake news, I want to give you an update on Operation Roaring Lion.”
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One of the more important revelations from Netanyahu’s press conference was about how the joint strikes with the U.S. (known as Operation Epic Fury in the U.S.) have been extremely effective at decimating Iran’s weapons. According to Netanyahu, the military operation against Iran had eliminated the country’s capabilities to enrich uranium and build ballistic missiles.
“Iran today has no ability to enrich uranium, and no ability to produce ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu said, albeit in Hebrew and not English, as the Times of Israel noted.
He elaborated on his view of the goals of these strikes, emphasizing that it was important to strike Iran now so the country did not have the opportunity to build up its ballistic arsenal and nuclear program. Netanyahu said a refusal to act now would have allowed Iran to shield its weapons programs “deep underground…immune from aerial attack.
“Under President Trump’s visionary leadership, America and Israel are acting together in Iran with great determination and unprecedented strength,” Netanyahu said. “Operation [Roaring] Lion is designed to remove the existential threats posed by the Ayatollah regime, the regime that has waged war against America and Israel and the people of Iran for 47 years. It chants, ‘Death to America, death to Israel.’ And it delivers death to its own people.”
“Our goals are three,” he added. “One, removing the nuclear threat. Second, removing the ballistic missile threat, and removing both of these threats before they’re buried deep underground and become immune from aerial attack. And third, this means creating the conditions for the Iranian people to grasp their freedom, to control their destiny.”
Netanyahu also mentioned Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz and its strikes on neighboring countries in the Middle East, notably Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. He rationalized Iran’s strikes against these countries as another justification for the current military operation against Iran, hypothesizing that without them, Iran would have developed nuclear warheads with their ballistic missiles.
“We’ve warned for decades that their ballistic missile program would be used to attack these targets far and wide, and if they’re not stopped, that’s just the beginning,” Netanyahu said. “The death cult in Iran is trying to blackmail the world by closing a key international maritime route, the Straits of Hormuz. It won’t work. Israel is helping in its own way, in intel and other means, the American effort to open the Straits of Hormuz.”
“But I want to ask you to imagine how the Ayatollah regime would be able to blackmail the entire world if they had ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Just imagine what they would do,” said Netanyahu. “Look at what they’re doing now and imagine what they would do if they had ballistic missiles, international-range ballistic missiles, and nuclear-tipped warheads. Just imagine what a great threat that would be.”
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He touted the destruction of Iran’s military units and stressed that while this was integral to the success of the operation, there was still much work to be done to accomplish their overall objectives.
“Iran’s air defenses have been rendered useless,” said Netanyahu. “Their navy is lying at the bottom of the sea. Today, we hit the other part of their navy in the Caspian Sea. Their air force is nearly destroyed. Iran’s command and control structure is in utter chaos.”
“And I can tell you that there’s still more work to do, and we’re going to do it,” he added.