Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested on Friday that the war with Iran would end so quickly that the world would barely have time to process it, declaring that Iran had been militarily broken after just twenty days of conflict. He announced the elimination of Iran’s uranium enrichment and ballistic missile capabilities and denied Israeli responsibility for US involvement in the war. Netanyahu’s press conference was confident and forward-looking throughout.
The prime minister described the Trump-Israel alliance in glowing and candid terms. He called their coordination the most tightly aligned partnership between two world leaders he had ever witnessed and framed Trump as the dominant partner. Netanyahu disclosed that Trump had brought his own independently formed and sophisticated understanding of Iran’s nuclear threat to their discussions, contributing insights that enriched their shared strategy.
Netanyahu confirmed Israel struck the South Pars gas compound alone and acknowledged Trump’s request to hold off on further strikes on Iranian gas infrastructure. He presented both facts transparently, framing them as natural features of a close and communicative alliance. Netanyahu maintained consistently that Israel’s military autonomy remained fully intact.
On Iran’s Hormuz threats, Netanyahu was dismissive. He labeled them blackmail and proposed pipeline corridors from the Arabian Peninsula to Israeli and Mediterranean ports as a permanent structural solution. Netanyahu argued this infrastructure would create lasting energy resilience and permanently eliminate the Hormuz chokepoint as an Iranian weapon.
Netanyahu concluded with an analysis of Iran’s leadership vacuum. He noted Mojtaba had not been seen publicly and admitted he did not know who was running the country. Netanyahu pointed to visible power struggles among Tehran’s ruling factions and concluded that this instability, combined with military losses, was driving the war toward a sooner-than-expected end.