Netanyahu claims Israel, US removed ‘immediate’ Iranian nuclear threat, ‘saved State of Israel from anniliation,’ but fight is ‘not over’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opens his press conference with an assertive defense of what he portrays as the success of the US-Israel campaign against Iran, vowing that, regardless of any deal between Washington and Tehran, the Islamic Republic will not have a nuclear weapon.

Facing mounting domestic backlash — including from within his own government — over the war’s apparent end, Netanyahu reiterates that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is his “life’s mission,” saying: “With an agreement or without an agreement, Iran will not have nuclear weapons — not today and not tomorrow. As long as I am prime minister of Israel, it will not happen.”

Netanyahu repeats his assertion that the nuclear threat from Iran had  been an “immediate danger” and Israel succeeded in removing it, “together with our American friends.”

“We launched the largest attack operation in Israel’s history. We targeted the nuclear scientists; we eliminated the leaders of the terror regime; we crushed the nuclear facilities; we destroyed missiles and the vast majority of the factories that produce missiles. We struck countless military industries and infrastructures. We destroyed their navy, their air force. We eliminated basij commanders who massacred the Iranian people. We caused enormous damage — [some] estimate it in the hundreds of billions of dollars, some estimate it at even close to a trillion dollars — to Iran’s economy,” he says.

“We removed, for years to come, this danger hanging over us of the elimination of Israel’s population. That is what we did. We saved the State of Israel from annihilation,” he says.

He adds, however, that “the struggle is not over and complete. We will need to continue standing guard, continue being strong and determined, and defend ourselves as much as necessary.”

“This is true not only against Iran,” he says, saying Israel’s fight will continue against “Iran’s terror arms” as well, as he says it has been doing against groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and the West Bank.

Amid concerns over US limitations on Israeli freedom of action, Netanyahu adds that in addition to fighting terror groups in those areas, “we established deep security zones around Israel… in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria,” and stresses that “we will remain in the security zones for as long as necessary to protect our country.”

Netanyahu vows Israel “will continue to thwart threats in the region, “build new alliances with countries in the region and outside the region,” and “ensure our security independence.”

To assist in that last effort, he says he is “putting an additional NIS 350 billion into the defense budget,” saying Israel will “develop technologies that push the boundaries of imagination, and we will turn Israel into an even stronger power.”