'A light has been lit, carry it to freedom' - Israeli PM encourages Iranian dissidents to overthrow the weakened regime

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has broadcast messages directly to the people of Iran on several occasions, insisting that Israel’s fight is not with them but with their leaders. In an interview with Iran International on Monday, he encouraged dissidents that now is the time to rise up and overthrow the Islamic regime.

"This is the time, your hour of freedom is near, it’s happening now," he told Pouria Zeraati in an interview with the London based satellite television channel. “A light has been lit, carry it to freedom,” he added.

“These dictators in Iran, sure they fear us – but they fear you, the people of Iran, even more,” Netanyahu said, according to the Iranian media group. “They understand that 80 percent of Iranians despise them."

The prime minister urged that Israel's ongoing military operations against Iran provided an unprecedented opportunity to bring an end to the Islamic regime which has been oppressing the Iranian people for more than 40 years.

“They’ve impoverished you, they’ve given you misery, they’ve given you death, they’ve given you terror, they shoot down your women, leaving this brave, unbelievable woman, Mahsa Amini, to bleed on the sidewalk for not covering her hair,” Netanyahu said in sympathy with his Iranian audience.

Speaking of the military accomplishments of the IDF so far in Operation Rising Lion, Netanyahu told his Iranian audience that the end of the Islamic Republic was in sight, encouraging them to seize the moment. "A light has been lit, carry it to freedom," he said.

Cameron Khansarinia, Vice President of the National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI), affirmed in a separate interview that the Islamic Republic is “weaker than it has ever been” over the last 46 years of rule in Iran. He said the Israeli operation has resulted in “not only a significant operational and strategic weakening but also a significant psychological weakening,” and concurred that the regime is now at its most vulnerable.

“Many Iranians are so tired of the regime that has really tortured them and held them hostage for so long so when they see the head of the revolutionary guard killed, for them they see that not as a compatriot being killed, but a terrorist being eliminated,” Khansarinia explained.

Netanyahu spoke of the precision strikes the IDF was carrying out, saying, “(We) knocked out their chief nuclear team, their nuclear sites… we're knocking out their ballistic missile production,” he added. “We still have a way to go, but we’ll finish it.”

Linking the security needs of Israel with the rights of the Iranian people, he presented the regime as a common enemy to both peoples.

“The tyrants of Tehran basically planned two weapons of mass death to exterminate Israel,” he said. “One is to rush forward with their nuclear program to develop atomic bombs to destroy Israel; second, they’ve programmed to build a vast missile arsenal, each missile carrying a one-ton payload, just slamming into our cities, killing our women, our children. They were going to build 20,000 of these.”

While the Iranian regime has repeatedly declared their intention to kill as many Israelis as possible, Netanyahu emphasized that the IDF was taking great measures to preserve civilian lives in Iran. 

"You can see that by the warnings we are sending, the forewarnings that we're sending to the people of Tehran and elsewhere," he stressed. "It is necessary in order to have the people leave the zone of conflict, that’s the whole difference between a terrorist regime that deliberately targets civilians [and] a democracy like Israel."

Despite attempts to avoid civilian deaths, Israel’s attacks since Friday have killed 322 people and injured 684 Iranians, many of whom were civilians according to human rights group HRANA. However, Israel’s minister of defense, Israel Katz, insisted that civilian deaths were not intentional.

"I wish to clarify the obvious: there is no intention to physically harm the residents of Tehran as the murderous dictator does to the residents of Israel," Katz said in a statement, having warned residents to evacuate the targeted areas.

Despite the undeniable cost and losses, many Iranians have expressed support for the Israeli strikes on social media, with the hashtag “Thanks to Israel” in Farsi (#سپاس_اسرائيل). Equally many Israelis support the Iranians who yearn for freedom. 

Referring to the ancient Persian King Cyrus who allowed the people of Israel to return and rebuild Jerusalem, Netanyahu exhorted the Iranians listening to him, “Cyrus freed the Jews, now it's your turn to be free.”