Netanyahu says Iran attacks halted ‘for now,’ warns Israel will strike Tehran, Hezbollah if attacked again

In his first public remarks since renewed fighting against Iran erupted last night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will halt attacks on Iran “for now,” while stressing that the fight against both Tehran and Hezbollah is “not over” and that Israel will continue to respond to any attacks on its territory.

“After Iran attacked Israel” in support of Hezbollah following Israel’s retaliatory strikes on the group in Beirut, “I directed the IDF to strike military and economic targets throughout Iran,” Netanyahu says in an apparently pre-recorded Hebrew-language video statement.

“At present, the fire on this front has been halted, because after the terrorist regime in Tehran was struck, it stopped attacking us,” Netanyahu says, while warning that “if that terrorist regime makes the mistake of attacking us again, we will respond with force.”

“Today, Iran and Hezbollah are weaker than ever, and we are stronger than ever. But our struggle against them is not yet over,” the premier says.

He adds that the military will continue to operate in southern Lebanon to “destroy all of [Hezbollah’s] terrorist infrastructure in the security zone, including massive underground facilities in the Beaufort Ridge.”

“Over the past day, Iran and Hezbollah tried to impose a new equation on us. That equation is intolerable and completely unacceptable to me. They thought they could launch attacks from Lebanon and Iran against Israel and that we would not act. That did not happen, and it will not happen. Not on my watch,” Netanyahu warns.

Netanyahu indicates that he relayed this message to US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly pressed Israel in recent days to de-escalate in order to preserve ongoing US-Iran negotiations on a deal.

“Israel has every right to self-defense, and we will exercise that right whenever necessary. I say this to you, dear citizens of Israel, just as I say it in my good conversations with my friend President Trump,” Netanyahu says.

The premier does not take questions from the press. The premier has not held a press conference for Israeli journalists in about three months, while granting several interviews to foreign media outlets over the same period.