During their White House meeting last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he presented President Trump with three options for dealing with Iran: a good agreement, military action, or tightening the economic siege.
Speaking in Jerusalem, Netanyahu praised the Trump’s administration’s latest economic pressure plan against Tehran – calling it, a “very powerful move.”
What President Trump did yesterday was to tighten the siege on Iran, not only by tightening the siege on Iran itself, but by tightening the siege on those who aid this regime, this terrible dictatorship. This is a very important step.”
Netanyahu also cautioned that Israel’s struggle against Iran and its regional allies is far from finished.
“We still have challenges ahead of us. The Iran challenge is not yet over. We need to bring to an end also the challenge in Gaza, in Lebanon, and also other arenas, and we are determined to do so.”
The prime minister delivered the remarks before leaders from Judea and Samaria, where he boasted of the dramatic expansion of Jewish communities in Israel’s biblical heartland, despite ongoing opposition from critics.
“I know that we are not only ensuring our existence in the present, we are ensuring the existence of the people of Israel in the future. One hundred sixty farms, 104 settlements that we established and regularized. And it is not easy. It is never easy.”
Netanyahu added, “We do not give up. We have a vision. This is our land, and it will remain ours.”
Meanwhile, at the United Nations Security Council, concerns are growing over the future of the Gaza ceasefire.
Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s High Representative for Gaza and the official overseeing President Trump’s Gaza plan, criticized continued Israeli strikes and warned that the ceasefire could soon be beyond reach.
“If this ceasefire collapses and the Strip spirals into another full escalation, there will be no roadmap to return to, no administration to deploy, and nothing left on the ground to rebuild. That would not be a setback. It would be a point of no return for everyone.”
The Board of Peace says Hamas has agreed to an actionable plan to surrender its weapons, followed by an Israeli withdrawal. Israel maintains that Hamas must fully disarm before any Israeli withdrawal takes place.
To Israel’s north, Defense Minister Israel Katz visited Israeli forces in southern Syria and delivered a direct message to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Katz declared that Israel will remain on Mount Hermon and inside the security zone for as long as jihadist threats against the Jewish state continue.
“There is daily activity here to thwart threats, to thwart the remnants of the old regime, to prevent the dangerous organization of the new regime, and the message is clear even to the Syrian president: when you wake up in the morning in the palace in Damascus and look up at Mount Hermon and see the IDF — you know that we are here to protect our communities and our border, and this is the best message.”
