Netanyahu vows continued action against Iran after ‘historic’ gains

The Israel Defense Forces’ campaign against Iran and its regional terrorist proxies is “not yet over” despite “historic accomplishments” during 40 days of fighting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday night.

In a televised address, Netanyahu warned that Jerusalem still has “more to do” and remained committed to eliminating the threat posed by Tehran’s remaining “magazine of missiles” and enriched uranium.

The Israeli leader spoke just hours before U.S. Vice President JD Vance announced that diplomatic talks with Iran had collapsed over the Islamic regime’s refusal to commit to nonproliferation.

“There is still enriched material in Iran,” noted Netanyahu in his address. And as U.S. President Donald Trump has said, he continued, “it needs to be removed. Either it will be removed by agreement, or it will come out in other ways. But we are working in cooperation between myself and President Trump, and between Israel and the U.S., that is unprecedented. These are achievements that change the entire balance of power.”

The IDF launched “Operation Roaring Lion” after intelligence indicated that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was slain in the opening strike of the war, had ordered the expansion of Iran’s nuclear and missile industry “deep under a high mountain, in such a way that even B-2 planes could not reach them,” said Netanyahu.

“If we had not launched ‘Operation Rising Lion’ [in June 2025] and later ‘Operation Roaring Lion,’ Iran would already have atomic bombs, and we prevented that,” the premier declared.

Netanyahu said the “giant achievements” by the IDF and the U.S. military had weakened the regime to the point it was “begging for a ceasefire,” adding that intelligence pointed to “internal conflicts at the top.”

“Those who threatened to destroy us are now fighting for their own survival,” he stated, saying this also applied to “arms of the octopus” like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

“As a result of this power we demonstrated, Lebanon turned to us in the last month, turned several times, to start direct peace talks. This has never happened in history; well, it happened once decades ago, but now they turned to us and I approved it subject to two things: We want to reach the disarming of Hezbollah and we want a real peace agreement, a peace agreement that will last for generations,” according to the prime minister.

“It’s not only Lebanon turning to us,” he continued. “Many other countries, both in the Middle East and outside of it, are turning to us for cooperation, for alliance.”

Netanyahu emphasized that a “mighty, huge change” had occurred throughout the region, crediting “our daring pilots, men and women, and our ground crews who work around the clock, and our heroic commanders and soldiers, and the fallen who fell for us, and those wounded in body and soul, for whose recovery we pray.”

“Behold, a people that rises up as a lioness, and as a lion lifts himself up,” he concluded, citing Numbers 23:24. “And with God’s help, we will continue to act together, and we will continue to win.”

U.S. and Iranian officials did not reach an agreement after 21 hours of talks in Islamabad, Vance announced on Sunday morning in Pakistan.

“We’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news,” the vice president told reporters. “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America.”

An anonymous Israeli source told the country’s Kan News broadcaster after the U.S.-Iran talks collapsed that a next round of fighting could see “severe and comprehensive” attacks, including on “national infrastructure, energy facilities and oil production.”