Israel Not Finished With Iran, Netanyahu Says After U.S. Airstrikes on Nuclear Sites
“We are progressing toward the goal of removing both threats together,” Netanyahu declared in pre-recorded press conference that aired in the evening. “We will not be dragged into a war of attrition. But we also will not end this action—this historic operation—before we achieve all our objectives.”
Netanyahu praised unprecedented U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear program the previous night, saying the B-2 bombers did “very serious damage” to Iran’s heavily fortified Fordow uranium enrichment facility. He said the full extent of the damage was still being assessed but U.S. bunker busters, dropped by order of President Donald Trump, significantly advanced Israel’s campaign against Iran, known as Operation Rising Lion, which began with a surprise assault on June 13.
U.S. officials gave similar assessments. Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform on Monday that the American strikes did “monumental damage” to Iran’s nuclear facilities, and, “Obliteration is an accurate term!” Vice president J.D. Vance said in a pair of TV news interviews on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear program was “set back by years.”
Meanwhile, Israel continued to carry out airstrikes in Iran, pounding dozens of missile, drone, and air defense sites and destroying five F-15 fighter jets, according to military officials. Semiofficial Iranian news media reported on Sunday that three members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in the western Zanjan province and that explosions were heard in Bushehr, near Iran’s only nuclear power plant.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Washington Free Beacon, “A lot has been accomplished—more than expected. Operation Rising Lion will continue until the objectives are reached.”
Iran responded with three separate missile barrages on Israeli cities as of early Monday morning. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a post to X from his bunker hideout on Monday, “The Zionist enemy … is being punished right now.” Amir Hatami, the new head of Iran’s military, on Sunday threatened a “decisive response” against the United States.
Several current and former Israeli officials told the Free Beacon that Israel’s campaign would continue for at least a few days or weeks, with an immediate focus on Iran’s missile infrastructure.
In a confidential briefing of the powerful Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday morning, lawmakers learned that Israeli strikes had destroyed several hundred of Iran’s ballistic missiles on the ground while the regime had fired another 450 at Israel during the campaign—drawing down an arsenal that initially numbered about 2,500, according to two sources familiar. Israel had also eliminated about 200 of Iran’s 500 surface-to-surface missile launchers and all three of its missile-defense systems in western Iran, giving the air force near-total air superiority in and around Tehran, though not yet to the same degree in the rest of the country.
“We still have 300 launchers for ballistic missiles that are threatening Israel,” said Ohad Tal, a member of the Israeli Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee from the Religious Zionism party. “And we’ve seen what even one missile can do to Israeli cities.”
Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu, told the Free Beacon that Israel must additionally address Iran’s 400-kilogram stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, close the level used for nuclear weapons.
“That might be a basis for a future bomb,” said Amidor, a researcher at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “The Iranians lost many capabilities that they need to transfer this enriched uranium to a bomb, but they still have the enriched uranium.”
According to Tal, Israel knows that the uranium stockpile “still exists” and “even where it is,” but he declined to elaborate. Netanyahu referred during his press conference on Sunday to “interesting intel” on the location of the stockpile.
Amir Avivi, a former senior Israeli military officer who has advised the government during the war, told the Free Beacon that Israel’s ambitions have expanded as the campaign has progressed more quickly than expected.
“The more we do, the more appetite we have,” he said.
The current and former officials said Israel was open to a nuclear deal to end the war with Iran but did not expect the regime to agree to Israeli terms, including complete dismantlement of its nuclear program. Tzachi Hanegbi, Netanyahu’s national security adviser, revealed in Sunday’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee briefing that Trump recently asked Netanyahu whether he would support a “good agreement” with Iran. Netanyahu replied that while a deal would be “best,” it will not happen “because the Iranians will not agree to give up any nuclear ambitions,” Hanegbi said.
Amit Segal, a well-sourced Israeli journalist, reported on Sunday that the view from Jerusalem is that the Iranian regime is on an “irreversible suicidal trajectory.”
U.S. officials have publicly appealed to Iran to resume negotiations over its nuclear program, which the regime cut off following Saturday’s attack. On Sunday, Vance told NBC News that the Trump administration wants peace with Iran “in the context of them not having a nuclear weapons program,” and defense secretary Pete Hegseth sought to reassure the ruling mullahs in a press conference at the Pentagon, “This mission was not and has not been about regime change.”
But Trump has sounded less conciliatory. In a speech at the White House late on Saturday, he gave Iran a choice between peace and “tragedy … far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” adding, “Remember, there are many targets left.” In a post to Truth Social on Sunday evening, Trump mused “if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???”
Even as Israel has ramped up pressure on Iran with strikes on political and economic sites and evacuations of civilians from Tehran, Israeli decision-makers have yet to commit to regime change. Hanegbi told lawmakers on Sunday that Khamenei was not a target for assassination “right now,” but clarified, “right now means for the next 60 seconds.”
The current and former Israeli officials said Israel may simply end the war after running out of targets to bomb in Iran. Israel would then enforce its new security doctrine, which Yossi Kuperwasser, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer and one-time Strategic Affairs Ministry director general, described as zero-tolerance for the development of “threats intended to destroy the State of Israel.”
“We finish striking all the targets, we confirm that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear program or a missile program anymore, and we go home,” said Kuperwasser, the head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies. “We tell the Iranians, ‘OK, we’re done, and don’t even think about resuming these programs or else we are going to come back.'”
Asked about Israel’s endgame during his Sunday press conference, Netanyahu declined to comment.
“I can imagine several options,” he said. “But I don’t think it helps us achieve the full goals of the war to lay them out here.”
Originally published in the Washington Free Beacon.