Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Iran no longer has the ability to enrich uranium or manufacture ballistic missiles after 20 days of joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes, and that Israel will refrain from further attacks on Iran’s largest natural gas field at the request of President Donald Trump.
“After 20 days, I can tell you that Iran no longer has the ability to enrich uranium and it no longer has the ability to produce ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu said at a televised news conference. He did not provide evidence for the claim.
“We are winning, and Iran is being decimated,” he added, saying Iran’s missile and drone arsenals are being systematically degraded. “What we’re destroying now are the factories that produce the components to make these missiles and to make the nuclear weapons they’re trying to produce.”
The war began Feb. 28 after nuclear talks collapsed and the United States and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on Iranian targets. Since then, Iran has fired missiles at Israel and several Gulf countries and has sought to disrupt tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, raising concerns about global energy supplies.
Netanyahu said Israel’s objectives are dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, eliminating its ballistic missile capabilities and creating conditions that would allow the Iranian people to “take their fate into their own hands.”
He said Israel has destroyed hundreds of missile launchers and is striking Iranian targets “in the air, on land, underground and now also at sea,” including naval assets in the Caspian Sea. He also cited the killing of senior Iranian political and military leaders and commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij paramilitary force.
Addressing energy infrastructure, Netanyahu said Israel would hold off on any further attacks on Iran’s giant South Pars natural gas field at Trump’s request, following earlier strikes that heightened tensions in global energy markets.
While the campaign has so far centered on air power, Netanyahu said “there has to be a ground component as well,” adding that “there are many possibilities” without elaborating.
He rejected suggestions that he had drawn the United States into the conflict. “Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do?” he said.
Netanyahu acknowledged that Iranian attacks have caused casualties and damage in Israel and expressed condolences to bereaved families. He said it was too early to determine whether the war would spark widespread unrest in Iran.
“You ask how long this will take,” he said. “It will take as long as necessary.”