Israel and the United States have made “historic gains” in the ongoing war against the Iranian regime, according to a statement from the office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a video message released Thursday, a spokesperson for Netanyahu said the coordinated effort between the two allies had produced major results. “Israel and the United States have together made historic gains to protect our citizens and the civilized world,” the statement said. The Israeli government also argued that the operation was necessary because Iran had been rebuilding its atomic bomb programme in new underground bunkers and had plans “to attack Israel and American forces in the Middle East.”
The conflict began when the United States and Israel launched large-scale strikes on Iran over the weekend. During the first day of the war, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed in missile strikes in Tehran. The attacks triggered an escalating confrontation across the region, with Tehran responding with missiles and drones targeting American interests and countries around the Persian Gulf.
According to the Israeli military, its operations have already had a measurable impact on Iran’s missile capabilities. Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said Israeli forces had neutralised around 300 Iranian ballistic missile launchers. As a result, the number of missiles fired by Iran at Israel has been declining steadily.
“We believe our operations against those missile launchers and against those stockpiles are an integral part of the fact that we’re seeing the amounts of missiles fired every day diminish,” he told journalists.
Israel also announced that it had begun a new wave of strikes in Tehran targeting infrastructure belonging to the Iranian regime. The Israel Defense Forces said the latest attacks focused on military facilities connected to Iran’s war effort.
At the same time, Israeli forces expanded operations against Iran’s regional allies. The military said it struck several targets belonging to the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, including rocket and missile launch sites south of the Litani River and a drone production facility. The strikes came after Israel issued evacuation warnings to residents living near the targeted areas.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the country will send air-defence assistance to Gulf countries hit by Iranian strikes. “We are clearly talking about defence, air defence, not just because they are friendly nations but because there are tens of thousands of Italians in that area and around 2,000 Italian soldiers that we must protect,” she added.
Meanwhile in Washington, President Donald Trump expressed strong confidence in the progress of the war effort. Speaking at the White House during a meeting with technology executives, Trump rated the performance of the United States in the conflict as “about a 15” on a scale of 10.
“We’re doing well on the war front, to put it mildly,” Trump said. “We’re in a very strong position now, and their leadership is just rapidly going.”
The president also said Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal was being “wiped out rapidly” as the campaign continued.
Trump pledged that he would “continue forward,” warning that Iran had been moving toward obtaining a nuclear weapon. “When crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen,” he said.
