Netanyahu Suggests Israel Is Already ‘Attacking Iran’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said this week that Israel is not just striking Iran’s terrorist proxy groups in the region, but Iran itself.

Netanyahu made the comments during a press conference on Thursday when asked by a reporter why Israel was “sufficing with attacks on Iran’s proxies rather than attacking Iran directly,” The Times of Israel reported.

Israeli media quoted Netanyahu as saying: “Who says we aren’t attacking Iran? We are attacking Iran.”

“Iran is the head of the octopus and you see its tentacles all around from the Houthis to Hezbollah to Hamas,” he said, referring to the three Islamic terrorist groups that are backed by Iran. “Iran is standing behind it. We are in conflict with Iran.”

Netanyahu warned that the world needs to take Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons seriously given its threats and support for terrorism.

“Imagine if this is what Iran is doing now, when it doesn’t have nuclear weapons, how critical is it that we stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons,” he said. “Iran has further phases to go through that I won’t detail on the path to nuclear weapons. I am obligated as the prime minister of Israel to do everything to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.”

Netanyahu’s comment about Israel striking Iran comes after Iran launched strikes inside Syria and Iraq, one of which was very close to the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, Iraq.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed that they were targeting the “headquarters of spies” and “anti-Iranian terrorist gatherings in parts of the region.” The IRGC claimed the facilities it targeted belonged to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. Iran claimed that Mossad was behind “terrorist activities in the region,” which is false.