Netanyahu: Iran nukes would be ‘untouchable within months’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran, saying the action was urgently necessary because Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs were on the verge of becoming untouchable.
In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu argued that Iran had accelerated efforts to shield its strategic weapons infrastructure in underground facilities, which he said would soon have made any future military operation ineffective.
“The reason that we had to act now is that after we hit their nuclear sites and their ballistic missile programme, you’d think they’d learn a lesson, but they didn’t,” Netanyahu said.
“Because they’re unreformable, they’re totally fanatic about this, about the goal of destroying America.”
According to Netanyahu, Iran responded to earlier strikes by expanding and fortifying its weapons infrastructure rather than scaling back.
He claimed Tehran was constructing new underground sites and bunkers designed to protect both its ballistic missile program and what he described as its atomic bomb ambitions.
“They started building new sites, new places, underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program immune within months,” he said.
Netanyahu maintained that the narrowing window for action left Israel and the United States with little choice.
“If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future,” he said in a clip aired by the US broadcaster.
His remarks underscore Israel’s long-standing position that Iran’s nuclear development poses an existential threat and must be confronted before it reaches a point of strategic immunity.
Tehran, for its part, has consistently denied seeking nuclear weapons, insisting that its program is for peaceful purposes.
The interview signals that Israeli leadership views the recent strikes not as a one-off operation but as a preemptive move to prevent Iran from crossing what it considers a critical threshold in its weapons capability.
