{"id":494329,"date":"2026-06-15T19:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/494329\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T19:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:29:14","slug":"netanyahu-without-israeli-strikes-on-iran-you-were-all-in-danger-of-mass-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/494329\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu: Without Israeli strikes on Iran, \u2018you were all in danger of mass death\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWith an agreement, without an agreement, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Not today and not tomorrow. As long as I am prime minister of Israel, it will not happen,\u201d Netanyahu said at the start of his statement.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05e8\u05d4"\u05de<\/a>\"\u05e8\u05d4"\u05de<\/p>\n

(Photo: Olivier Fitoussi, Haaretz)<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear people asking, \u2018What did we achieve?\u2019 We removed from ourselves the danger of immediate annihilation, together with our friends,\u201d he said. \u201cWe carried out the largest attack sortie. We thwarted the nuclear scientists, decapitated the leaders of the terror regime, crushed the nuclear facilities, destroyed missiles and the vast majority of the factories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said Israel\u2019s central achievement was that it \u201csaved the State of Israel from the threat of nuclear annihilation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIran was racing toward a nuclear weapon right before Operation Rising Lion,\u201d he said, referring to the Israeli military operation against Iran. \u201cIf we had not acted, all of you would have been in danger of mass death. All of us were in that danger, and we pushed away from ourselves, for years, the danger of the elimination of Israel\u2019s population.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said the fight had not ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have to continue standing guard, to be strong and determined to defend ourselves, as much as needed,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is also true against Iran\u2019s terror arms, which we struck in an unprecedented way. We did it in Gaza, in Lebanon, in the refugee camps, everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also defended Israel\u2019s broader security policy after the October 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, saying the country had changed its military doctrine and would no longer allow terror organizations to position themselves near Israeli communities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05e4\u05e2\u05d9\u05dc\u05d5\u05ea<\/a>\"\u05e4\u05e2\u05d9\u05dc\u05d5\u05ea<\/p>\n

IDF troops in Gaza <\/p>\n

(Photo: IDF)<\/p>\n

\u201cYou remember what they told us? That if we entered a battle against Hezbollah, we would have tens of thousands dead, the towers would fall, Israel\u2019s cities would become islands of ruins. I did not accept that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fought them, seized their key positions like Beaufort,\u201d Netanyahu added, referring to the Beaufort fortress area in southern Lebanon. \u201cWe established deep security zones around Israel, in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria. We will remain in the security zones as long as needed to defend our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter October 7, I set a simple principle: Israel will not allow terror organizations to prepare for a massacre near our citizens,\u201d he said. \u201cToday, the heroic IDF soldiers stand between the terrorists and our citizens. We changed our entire security doctrine, we broke through the barrier of fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said some were trying to minimize Israel\u2019s achievements, but added that Israel planned to pursue further strategic goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will build new alliances with countries in the region and outside the region,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will ensure our weapons independence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about U.S. President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said the two leaders had known each other for many years and did not always agree.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are cases where we see eye to eye, and there are cases where less so,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cI stand up for Israel\u2019s interests, not with bluster. To do that wisely requires a lot of experience and a deep familiarity with the American arena. I think I do that in the best possible way.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05e0\u05e9\u05d9\u05d0<\/a>\"\u05e0\u05e9\u05d9\u05d0<\/p>\n

(Photo: REUTERS\/Daniel Heuer)<\/p>\n

Netanyahu denied that he had defined \u201cremoving the existential threat\u201d from Iran as a war goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe defined the goals as pushing away from us an existential nuclear danger, and we did that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted to push away the missile threat, and we did that. We said we would create the conditions for the Iranian people, if they choose, to remove this terror regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said Iran was in \u201ca very difficult economic situation\u201d and that Israel had hit its infrastructure hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe damage is enormous,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are cracks in the regime. To say when the regime will fall, I do not know how to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the possibility that he might not run in Israel\u2019s next election, Netanyahu replied: \u201cI am very moved by your concern. I want to reassure you: I am going to run and I intend to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a question from ynet on whether Israel is committed to the agreement with Iran, Netanyahu said the deal was made by the United States and that Trump believed he could combine it with reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the key maritime route at the center of the latest negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis agreement was made by the U.S., and the president thinks he will be able to combine the opening of the straits,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cOn the other hand, I said we have our own interests, first of all regarding the nuclear threat. I am committed to there being no such threat against us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last Thursday, Netanyahu set out four goals that he said Israel expected from the outcome of U.S.-Iran talks: removing Iran\u2019s enriched nuclear material, dismantling its enrichment infrastructure, restricting its missile production and ending its support for terror proxies.<\/p>\n

But with a memorandum of understanding expected to be signed Friday to open negotiations, those goals appear far from being met. The agreement, which Trump welcomed, is seen in Israel as a complete Iranian deception of the Americans, who lost patience.<\/p>\n

Under the memorandum of understanding, Trump effectively chose to set aside the original demands and focus first on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with other issues to be discussed later.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said last Thursday that \u201cIsrael is not a party to the memorandum of understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWith an agreement, without an agreement, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Not today and not tomorrow.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-494329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}