PM says war with Iran set its nuke program back by years, claims there are efforts to downplay this

Concluding his second lengthy press conference this evening with a response to a question on the June war against Iran, Netanyahu assesses that Israel’s campaign set Tehran’s nuclear program “years” back.

“On Iran — we have inflicted very significant damage, setting them back by years. One can debate how many years, but they were just months away from a nuclear weapon — a nuclear facility or nuclear bombs — and this has been pushed back.”

“They will try to rebuild. I’ve said before, this is like a person who removes cancer from his body — but when you remove cancer from your body, there can be metastases, it can come back. Only we knew that if we did not remove this cancer, we would die. And so we removed it. This obligates us to remain fully vigilant. We are prepared for any scenario. The Iranians are also preparing for various scenarios — which I will not detail here,” he concludes.

Earlier in the press conference, Netanyahu claims that there are efforts to downplay the achievements in the war against Iran — a likely reference to reports citing alleged US intelligence pointing to Tehran’s nuclear program only having been set back by months.