JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to Washington this week for another meeting with President Trump. The visit comes after weeks of speculation about a U.S. strike against Iran as Washington pursues negotiations with the Islamic Regime.
Netanyahu moved up his meeting with Trump, which had been scheduled for later in the month. The Prime Minister’s Office indicates that any negotiations with Iran must include limitations on halting the support for Iran’s proxies in the region (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis) and limitations on Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Israel is reportedly prepared to act unilaterally against Iran if necessary.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar warned about Iran’s ambitions, declaring, “The attempt by the most extreme regime in the world to obtain the most dangerous weapon in the world, a nuclear weapon, is a clear danger to peace in the region and in the world. The huge amounts of long-range ballistic missiles that the Iranian regime seeks to produce endanger Israel, but not just here.”
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Iran and U.S. negotiators ended their talks in Oman with no resolution. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claims Iran is not afraid of the U.S. military buildup in the region, insisting Iran will keep enriching uranium and won’t budge on other issues.
“The other issues you mentioned, the missile issue and defense matters, are our defense and security issues and are in no way negotiable, neither now nor at any time in the future,” said Araghchi.
He also blamed the anti-government protesters and their leaders for the violence inside Iran.
“What we witnessed in Tehran and other Iranian cities over ten days were demonstrations, and the protests themselves were fully accepted. The government was also engaged in talks with the leaders of the demonstrators. But on the eighth, ninth, and tenth of January, we were faced with a terrorist action,” Araghchi explained.
Iran puts the death toll at just over three thousand. However, CBN News spoke with an Iranian pastor who just left the country.
He told us, “The number is much higher than that. The number is something more than 50,000 people (who) have been killed by the regime.”
The Iranian pastor claims the violence hasn’t stopped.
“The form has changed because we have so many people who have been arrested and are in the huge risk of execution and also torture inside of the jails. There have been some reports that some people have been executed. But of course, the government tried to keep it hidden, and they’re doing it behind closed doors.”
Eyewitness accounts also reveal executions on the street, inside hospitals, and in houses, against unarmed protesters. CBN News received an audio from inside Iran that documents, in just one area, what witnesses say are horrific crimes committed by the regime.
In the audio, a woman says, “Excuse me. There’s a family – a twelve-year-old boy’s ball fell out of the yard at dusk. He went out to get his ball. The boy was shot with pellets. They took him to the hospital. When they came to see the boy, they shot him in the head.”
“She continued, “His brother was there with him. The brother was about twenty, twenty-two years old. They killed his brother. The father went to collect their bodies. They killed the father, too. I know these people. I can’t just ignore this. I know what’s going on here. They killed everyone. In Ahar, they killed everyone. On just one street, maybe close to a thousand people were killed. Just (on) our street, the things you see are nothing like the reality we witnessed up close. Even in a war between two countries, it couldn’t have been like this. Not like what happened here.”
Given the scale of the killings, some are now calling the regime’s actions crimes against humanity.
