Israel hit key Iranian sites hard in its airstrikes on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a fiery address on Monday at the opening of the Knesset winter legislative session.
“We severely damaged Iran’s defense systems and its ability to export missiles,” Netanyahu said in a speech to the Knesset plenum. “These were not [basic tools] we were attacking. These are industrial factories of death and we struck them hard.”
Netanyahu obliquely pushed back on reports that the White House had convinced him to scale back the response to Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack, emphasizing that “we make decisions ourselves according to our interests and considerations.”
Seemingly responding to recent criticism that the ongoing war lacks clear strategic aims, the prime minister said Israel’s goals against Iran and its proxies are clear: “Our long-term strategy is to dismantle the axis of evil, to cut off its arms in the south and in the north, to exact a heavy price from Iran and its proxies and to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons.”
The IDF carried out a wave of strikes against targets in Iran early Saturday morning, almost four weeks after the Islamic Republic’s massive ballistic missile barrage on the country. The operation, hitting targets some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) away, was unprecedented in terms of its scale and duration, as well as Israel’s immediate acknowledgment of responsibility.
The strikes came after weeks of Israel being urged to temper its response to the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel on October 1, which came days after Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah. Satellite imagery of Iran has shown damage to a number of military sites, though Iranian leaders have sought to downplay the effects.
Netanyahu said Monday that Israel is the one obstacle keeping Iran from controlling the Middle East and threatening the rest of the world.
“The fanatical axis of evil led by Iran threatens to destroy our country and trap other countries in its net, and to threaten the West first of all. Iran is working for a stockpile of nuclear bombs and will be able to threaten the entire world whenever it wants,” he said.
Commenting on the strike on Iran, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant echoed Netanyahu’s proclamations, saying that Iran’s air defenses and missile production capabilities had been significantly weakened.
Gallant: Iran weakened for ‘when we want to attack later’
“This is a proof of ability… A very accurate hit on the radars and the air defense systems, which actually creates a big disadvantage for the enemy when we want to attack later,” he said.
The defense minister said that the strikes also damaged Iran’s missile production capabilities, leaving its stockpiles limited until manufacturing can resume.
Gallant said the damage to the air defenses and missile production caused “a change in the balance of power.”
“[Israel] remains with its power, [Iran] is weakened,” he added. “Both in [our] attacking ability and in its defensive ability and in its production ability.”
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