Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Donald Trump’s June attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities as a “historical moment” in a speech delivered before the US President addressed the Jewish state’s parliament.
Likening the bombing of Fordow to the 2020 killing of Quds Force chief, Qassem Soleimani, killed in an airstrike in Iraq, Netanyahu said to Trump: “You have changed the balance of power.”
Trump’s address came as Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza released all the remaining 20 living hostages held since October 7, 2023, when the militant group, designated a terrorist organization by countries such as the US, captured over 250 and killed over 1,200 mostly civilians.
The living hostages were back in Israel by lunchtime on Monday, while 28 other dead one were still due for release and the first of 1,950 Palestinian prisoners on terror charges were released from Israeli jails.
Since October 7, Netanyahu said, Iran and its allies around the region have all been weakened. The deaths of leaders including Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had shown the damage done to Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ - a group of allies united under the Palestinian cause and aiming for the destruction of Israel - which attacked the Jewish state from seven fronts in the wake of October 7.
“Our enemies now know the strength of Israel,” he said. Israel achieved “amazing victories over Hamas and the entire Iranian terror axis,” he added, saying that after the bloody 12-day war in June which saw death and destruction to both Iran and Israel, Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program has been “rolled back.”
Speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana spoke of the 'bravery' of Trump, saying the bombing of Iran’s three nuclear facilities, Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, in Operation Midnight Hammer, was a huge act of bravery after Israel launched Operation Rising Lion on June 13 when it launched air attacks which killed swathes of Iran's military leadership and top nuclear experts.
Ohana called Trump a “colossus who will be enshrined in the pantheon of history,” declaring that the Jewish people will remember him “thousands of years from now.”
