Netanyahu gives defiant remarks after strikes in Lebanon, Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered defiant remarks on Wednesday following the deaths of top Hezbollah and Hamas officials, saying Israel is achieving its war aims and defeating Iranian proxy groups in the Middle East.

In a video address given hours after a suspected Israeli strike in Iran killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at his Tehran residence, Netanyahu said Israel has successfully targeted several of its enemies across the region.

“Back in the first days of the war, I said it will take some time, and it will require patience from all of us,” he said. “For months now, every week, people tell me both in and outside of Israel to finish the war because we’ve exhausted whatever we can achieve and it’s impossible to win the war.”

“But I did not give in to these voices then, and I do not give in to them today,” he added. “Had we given in to these pressures, we would not have killed the heads of Hamas and thousands of terrorists.”

Netanyahu acknowledged the death of Fuad Shukr, a senior adviser and right-hand man to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah who was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut on Tuesday. Shukr was killed after Hezbollah launched a rocket strike over the weekend that killed 12 children in the Golan Heights.

“We settled the score,” Netanyahu said, “and we will settle the score with anyone else who massacres our children, murders our citizens. Anybody who harms our country will die.”

But the Israeli prime minister did not mention the death of Haniyeh. Israel rarely acknowledges operations in countries it is not at direct war with or covert assassinations from the Mossad intelligence group.

It’s also rare for Israel to strike inside of Iran. But Israeli forces have done so, in 2020 against Iranian scientists and in April following Tehran’s missile and drone barrage against Israel.

The recent Israeli strikes have raised the specter of a full-blown war in the Middle East, which has been boiling for months as Israel fights against Hamas in Gaza and trades daily fire over the border of Lebanon with Hezbollah.

Israel carried out strikes earlier this month on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who killed one person in a drone strike in Tel Aviv days earlier. The Iranian-backed Houthis have attacked merchant ships and battled the U.S. since the breakout of the Gaza war.

Netanyahu has been criticized for failing to reach a deal with Hamas to bring back the roughly 116 hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas, which invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.

In a November cease-fire, 105 hostages were freed, but another deal has yet to emerge despite U.S. pressure. Israeli strikes this week are likely to set things back further.

Netanyahu, who before the U.S. Congress last week said he was “confident” in reaching a cease-fire deal but also pushed for the “total destruction” of Hamas, said in his Wednesday video address that he could still achieve the freeing of hostages and the defeat of the Palestinian militant group in Gaza.

But he spent most of the address praising his forces for their combat victories.

“We’ve achieved all of that over the past few months because we did not surrender, because we have reached some very brave decisions despite very heavy pressures from within and without,” Netanyahu said. “It wasn’t easy. I had to push back against so many pressures.”