Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a strikingly optimistic assessment of the conflict’s trajectory on Friday, declaring that the war with Iran would end faster than people think while also announcing that the country had lost all nuclear enrichment and ballistic missile capabilities after twenty days of fighting. He denied Israeli responsibility for US involvement in the war, calling those reports false. Netanyahu’s press conference was energetic and forward-looking.
The prime minister spoke warmly about his relationship with Donald Trump, calling it the most synchronized alliance he had witnessed between two world leaders. He pushed back on the notion that Israel had guided Trump into the conflict, pointing to the American president’s deep and independent understanding of the Iranian nuclear threat. Netanyahu said Trump had in fact educated him on aspects of that threat, not the other way around.
Netanyahu confirmed that Israel had struck the South Pars gas complex alone, and noted that Trump had asked him to pause further strikes on Iranian gas infrastructure. He treated both facts as transparent features of a close and functioning alliance. Netanyahu made clear that Israel’s right to make its own military decisions had not been restricted by diplomatic exchanges.
On Iran’s Hormuz threats, Netanyahu was dismissive and strategic. He called the threats blackmail and proposed pipeline routes from the Gulf through the Arabian Peninsula to Israeli and Mediterranean ports as a lasting structural alternative. Netanyahu framed this vision as part of the post-conflict regional order he hoped to help build.
Netanyahu’s final comments focused on Iran’s visible leadership fragmentation. He noted Mojtaba’s absence from public view and said he genuinely did not know who was governing Iran. Netanyahu observed tension among competing factions in Tehran and concluded that this chaos, combined with military losses, was driving the war toward an earlier-than-expected end.