'We are winning, and Iran is being decimated': PM Netanyahu says Israel 'not sure who is running Iran right now'

In a press briefing on day 20 of the war against Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again joked about rumors of his death, reiterated the war’s goals, and stressed the close and continuing cooperation with the American administration.

Addressing reporters during the English-language portion of his statement, Netanyahu began, “First of all, I just want to say I'm alive, and you're all witnesses. Now that I dispatched this piece of fake news, I want to give you an update on Operation Roaring Lion.”

Netanyahu reiterated that the three goals of the war are unchanged: “One, removing the nuclear threat. Second, removing the ballistic missile threat and removing both of these threats before they're buried deep underground and become immune from aerial attack. And third, this means creating the conditions for the Iranian people to grasp their freedom, to control their destiny.”

The prime minister also dismissed “fake news” that Israel dragged the United States into the conflict, a notion that returned to the headlines recently when former counter-intelligence director Joe Kent accused Israel of doing so in his resignation letter.

“Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on. President Trump always makes his decisions based on what he thinks is good for America.”

Kent later addressed the controversy over the Israeli strike on the Iranian gas compound, which reports first suggested was coordinated with the U.S., before President Trump denied it. “Fact number one, Israel acted alone against” the South Pars gas field, said Netanyahu, without specifying whether the U.S. had been informed beforehand.

“Fact number two, President Trump asked us to hold off on future attacks, and we’re holding off.”

Netanyahu stressed that the regime is now attacking not only Israel and U.S. assets in the region, but “the entire Middle East and beyond,” including “through their proxies – Cyprus in Europe.”

“We've warned for decades that their ballistic missile program would be used to attack these targets far and wide,” he said.

On Wednesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee that the regime was “gaining experience” in developing longer-range missiles.

“If Iran were allowed to develop at the IRBM ranges [intermediate-range ballistic missiles], which is 3,000 kilometers, it would threaten most of Europe,” Ratcliffe said, adding that allowing these efforts to continue would have given Iran a path to develop capabilities that threaten the continental U.S.

Netanyahu also stressed that the ayatollah regime would be able to blackmail the entire world if it had acquired ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, and is now "trying to blackmail the world by closing ... the Strait of Hormuz."

He said, "Israel is helping in its own way, in intel and other means, the American effort to open the Strait of Hormuz," later adding that it is vital to establish "alternative routes" to the chokepoints at the Hormuz and Bab-al-Mandab straits.

What is needed are “oil pipelines, gas pipelines going west through the Arabian Peninsula right up to Israel, right up to our Mediterranean ports," Netanyahu said. “I see that as a real change that will follow this war, but I also see this war ending a lot faster than people think.”

“Despite the fake news that has unfortunately been spread since the start of the war 20 days ago, we are winning, and Iran is being decimated,” Netanyahu said, noting that the regime’s  missile and drone arsenal is “massively degraded,” hundreds of launchers have been “destroyed,” missile stockpiles are being “hit hard, and so are the industries that produce them.”

“We're wiping out their industrial base in a way that we didn't do before. Iran's air defenses have been rendered useless. Their navy is lying at the bottom of the sea. Today, we hit the other part of their navy in the Caspian Sea. Their air force is nearly destroyed. Iran's command and control structure is in utter chaos,” he said.

The prime minister specifically mentioned that Israel is “not sure who is running Iran right now,” given contradictory reports about the condition of the new supreme leader.

“Mojtaba [Khamenei], the replacement ayatollah, [has] not shown his face,” Netanyahu continued, adding that there is “a lot of tension” in the top leadership of the regime.

“Just imagine what they would do, what they're capable of doing, if these lunatics had nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to every American city and every European city and everywhere around the globe. This is a danger for the entire world. It's certainly a danger for Israel. It's certainly a danger for America.”

Netanyahu concluded, “The world owes a debt of deep indebtedness, deep indebtedness, to President Trump for leading this effort to safeguard our future.”