Tel Aviv
\nPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel is already carrying out direct attacks on Iran and is making every possible effort to prevent Tehran from attaining nuclear weapons. Answering a reporter\u2019s question in Tel Aviv on Thursday about why Israel is conducting attacks on Iran\u2019s proxies rather than attacking the country directly, Netanyahu replied: \u201cWho says we are not attacking Iran, we are attacking.\u201d
\nIsrael claims Iran was involved in plotting the October 7 attacks, when around 1,200 people were killed and scores taken hostage in the surprise Hamas raid near Gaza. Israel retaliated by launching an intense military bombardment of the Palestinian enclave, so far leaving about 24,000 dead, according to local health officials. The operation is aimed at wiping out the militant group, West Jerusalem says.
\nIsrael has previously openly accused Iran of aiding Hamas \u201cwith money, training and weapons and technological know-how\u201d and intelligence.
\n\u201cIran is standing behind it. We are in conflict with Iran. Imagine not what Iran can do to us, to destroy us,\u201d Netanyahu said, claiming he will only agree to a deal that grants West Jerusalem security control over all of Gaza.
\nIran has denied any role in the Hamas assault on Israel, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani saying such accusations were \u201cbased on political reasons.\u201d
\nNetanyahu added that \u201cIran is the head of the octopus and you see its tentacles all around from the Houthis to Hezbollah to Hamas.\u201d
\nIran has widely been seen by Israel and the US and as the major destabilizing power in the Middle East, allegedly supplying weapons, military expertise, and training to Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
\nThe US has previously alleged that Iran is \u201cdeeply involved\u201d in Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, claiming that it has provided the rebels with drones, missiles, and intelligence. Tehran has denied the allegation, insisting that \u201cresistance groups\u201d are acting independently and \u201cnot taking orders from Tehran to confront the war crimes and genocide committed by Israel.\u201d
\nIsrael rarely publicly admits to attacking Iran directly, but the Islamic Republic has long been a target of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his several terms in power.
\nIn December former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett revealed that Israel had attacked an unmanned aerial vehicle base in Iran and assassinated a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander.
\nBennett, who was Israeli prime minister from June 2021 to June 2022, made the admission in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tel Aviv Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel is already carrying out direct attacks on Iran and is making every possible effort to prevent Tehran from attaining nuclear weapons. Answering a reporter\u2019s question in Tel Aviv on Thursday about why Israel is conducting attacks on Iran\u2019s proxies rather than attacking the country directly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13252],"class_list":{"0":"post-381856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-netanyahu"},"yoast_head":"\n