🚨 Israeli Official Confirms: "Strikes on Iran Are Only a Matter of Time"

How does the Israeli government plan to deal with Iran in twenty twenty-six? By never letting it regain its strength in the first place. You strike before Tehran can rebuild its facilities, and you remove the supposed danger before it even has a chance to become real. In a region where ceasefires are worth less than at any time in decades, Jerusalem follows one simple principle: whoever strikes first makes the rules. At least, that is the line the Netanyahu government is now stating quite openly.

In a remarkable report, an Israeli government official says new strikes on Iran are only a matter of time. The broadcaster did not give his name. So the question is no longer whether the next wave of strikes will come, but only when. But this time, it is no longer supposed to depend on what is decided in the White House. The decision, so the message goes, will be made in Jerusalem. Israel is ready to resume fighting with Iran at any time, the official said, either alongside the United States or completely independently of it.

On the same day, Benjamin Netanyahu stepped before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and his speech sounded like the official confirmation of that threat, delivered in front of representatives of almost every country in the world. Just as the official had announced, Israel moved a big step closer to a new round of this war, one in which it no longer waits for what Washington and Tehran agree at the negotiating table, but wants to choose the moment itself. The Saudi broadcaster Al-Hadath was the first to carry the statement. Financial news services pushed it out to the markets within minutes. On September twenty-fourth, the Times of Israel picked up the report and made it public that an Israeli government official considers a new war against Iran not just possible, but inevitable.

According to him, Iran is moving parts of its nuclear program into a mountain south of Natanz and turning it into an underground fortress. A claim that nobody has independently confirmed so far. In other words, Israel does not want to settle for pointing at satellite images and telling the world: "Look at what Tehran is supposedly planning." Because let's be honest: this is about one very specific place. If, in Israel's reading, red lines are crossed there, then this very mountain is supposed to become the next target. No matter how far the talks between Washington and Tehran have come by then. The real guarantee against a nuclear-armed Iran, the official went on, lies in bringing down the current leadership in Tehran, one way or another. What that means is nothing less than regime change, and so this has long been about far more than nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu himself said at the podium that destroying Iran's nuclear facilities had been hard, but for him one of the easiest decisions of his entire time in office. Had Israel not acted, Netanyahu said, everyone would be dead today. There is a catch, however, before we go on. Because while Jerusalem talks about the next strike, Washington is sitting at the table with Tehran, and Israel is not even represented in those talks. On September twenty-third, American and Iranian representatives negotiated for hours through mediators on the sidelines of the General Assembly, and special envoy Steve Witkoff afterwards called the talks constructive and promising.

That could become the real stumbling block, because back in August Donald Trump made it clear that he will not let Netanyahu dictate when this war continues. He did not need Bibi to know that, Trump said. Bibi was only telling him that because he wanted America to stay involved. But before we get to why that matters so much, one thing up front: this threat does not come out of nowhere. Israel and the United States have been waging this war against Iran for months, and it has kept the entire region on edge ever since. Their joint offensive began on February twenty-eighth. Since April the major strikes have largely been on hold, and the June agreement that was supposed to turn that into a lasting peace fell apart after a few weeks. In August it expired for good.

Since then, one barrier after another has been coming down, and the threat to act alone if necessary is not new either. As early as August, Al Jazeera reported that Netanyahu might be preparing to continue the war against Iran on his own if Washington opts for a compromise. So even then, the question was not whether Israel wants to strike, but only whether it will still wait for Washington. Netanyahu himself said at the time that Israel was determined to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and that it would do whatever was necessary.

So this new threat is not just an announcement of strikes. It is a signal that the Netanyahu government is ready to strike even if Washington chooses a different path. And that is exactly where the real explosive power of this news lies. So much for the background of this threat. Now let's take a closer look at the place this is really about. It is called Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, better known in the West as Pickaxe Mountain. A literal translation of its Persian name. It lies only about two kilometers south of the Natanz enrichment facility.

Inside this mountain, Iran has spent years building a large tunnel system, according to Western analysts deeper in the rock than most of the country's known facilities. And that is exactly where construction has been going on for months, as satellite images show. According to an analysis by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the tunnel entrances are being raised and reinforced, the access roads paved and large amounts of earth hauled away. This is the kind of work you see when a facility is being hardened against air strikes. On September tenth, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, also confirmed on Bloomberg that there is construction activity at the site. By his own account, however, his inspectors have never been inside the facility.

The agency has asked Tehran for information and access. No answer is known so far. For the Israeli government, that very gap is enough to declare the mountain a target. Whatever nobody can see should, if in doubt, be destroyed. You may be thinking right now that this logic goes pretty far. Bombing a country because you cannot look into its tunnels is one thing. But bombing that same country while it is negotiating with Washington is a step many in the region are likely to see as open sabotage of diplomacy.

And they would not be alone. Because President Masoud Pezeshkian summed it up in one sentence at the United Nations. The nuclear weapon is in Israel, but the inspectors are in Iran. We have already mentioned that Israel no longer sets the pace in Washington. And that could become a problem for Netanyahu. Because even in Israel itself, support for this course is anything but unanimous. The Israeli historian Ahron Bregman of King's College London calls the war against Iran a strategic catastrophe. Foreign Policy magazine goes even further and asks whether Netanyahu needs this conflict above all for his own political survival.

The analyst David Rosenberg writes there that Netanyahu could be tempted to create one or more security crises before the election in order to present himself once again as the man who protects Israel. That image is his most important political capital, and that very capital has suffered badly in recent years. A new strike on Iran would allow him to polish it up again shortly before the election, at the expense of an entire region. There are also concerns about what this course would mean internationally. Because Israel, unlike Iran, is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has never opened its own facilities to international inspectors, even though it is widely believed to have nuclear weapons itself.

That is exactly the inequality Pezeshkian meant when he said in New York that Iran wants no nuclear weapons, but also no limits on new peaceful nuclear technology. For many countries in the Middle East and far beyond, a new Israeli go-it-alone strike would therefore be a dangerous break with the rules the world actually agreed on after decades of disarmament policy. The other side in Israel, of course, sees it completely differently. For the hawks in Jerusalem, talks with Tehran are a pure waste of time, and in their view every pause only gives Iran the chance to regroup. That is exactly the argument of Kobi Michael of the Misgav Institute, who told Al Jazeera that Israel must strike directly at the head of the octopus, and dismissed the negotiations as useless.

Even so, Netanyahu still faces hurdles. Can he overcome them before Israelis go to the polls? Either way, time is running short. And for a reason that has little to do with Iran. On October twenty-seventh, Israel elects a new Knesset, and that is the latest date the law allows. According to Foreign Policy, Netanyahu's Likud is at best treading water in the polls or even losing ground, while the opposition catches up, led by his challenger Gadi Eisenkot, the army's former chief of staff.

So this time, an election victory is anything but a formality for Netanyahu. And if that is true, it becomes clear why Jerusalem is talking so loudly about the next war right now of all times. But the real question remains: why should this strike come right now, in the middle of ongoing talks? That is exactly what we will show you now. But before we dig deeper: you are watching FR Report, and there is a lot more analysis like this here.

If you have not subscribed to the channel yet, please take a second, hit the button and turn on the bell so you never miss a video. So far, we have called these strikes pre-emptive, just the way the Israeli government itself likes to. That is true insofar as Israel wants to get ahead of a development it only suspects is happening inside a mountain. But in reality there is nothing pre-emptive about it, because a new strike would not be the start of a war, but only the next round of a war that has long been under way. Let's go to New York.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu stayed in the city for less than eight hours, just long enough for his speech. A meeting with Donald Trump was not on the schedule, because the president had already left New York by then. Then came another twist. Trump had spoken before the same assembly in the same week. His speech lasted thirty-eight minutes, and Israel came up only once.

Netanyahu's name was not mentioned at all. So Washington's most important ally traveled halfway around the world, and the man who matters most to him was not only absent, but had not even mentioned him in his big speech. And in the hall, numerous delegations demonstratively left their seats as Netanyahu stepped up to the podium. We have already covered that walkout in detail in a separate video. This time, in New York, it stayed at words. But next time, according to the message from his circle, bombs could follow, and without asking Washington for permission first.

Officially, of course, the Netanyahu government continues to stress its close partnership with Washington. But everyone in the region understands what the small addition "independently" means. And yet Washington itself sharply increased the pressure on Tehran in August. The United States expanded its secondary sanctions, and the Treasury even spoke of an economic D-Day. What that means is that anyone who does business with Iran can themselves be cut off from the American financial system. But even this pressure has not brought a breakthrough so far.

And the fact that Israel is openly talking about new bombs despite this offensive from Washington and despite ongoing talks shows why the tone is getting sharper so quickly right now. And Tehran is answering with the same toughness, not through anonymous officials, but with names and uniforms. The spokesman of the Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi, said on September twenty-first that in the event of a new attack, the theater, the weapons and the targets of this war would change. Iran is prepared for a long war and has new weapons with new capabilities, Mohebbi said. He did not say what those weapons are supposed to be. Jerusalem should not dismiss this warning lightly, because the previous rounds of this war have shown that Iran can strike back, and that the price is paid not only in Israel but across the entire region.

And the closer the election in Israel gets, the greater the danger that political calculations become more important than military reason. At least, that is how it sounds from Tehran. Of course, Mohebbi speaks for the Revolutionary Guards, and his words are also part of deterrence. But his warning is not entirely without foundation.

And in Washington, too, concern about a new, bigger war is growing. Because open resistance is forming in the American Congress. The Senate rejected a resolution meant to end the war against Iran only by an extremely narrow margin, after the House of Representatives had already passed a resolution of its own. Such a narrow majority shows how thin support for this war in Washington has become, and that in the middle of an ongoing operation. And it was in exactly this climate that Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, according to the Financial Times, put a proposal on the table.

Within seven days, the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened and the way cleared for negotiations, based on the June agreement. His conditions are clear: the naval blockade is lifted, frozen assets are released, and the war ends on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Araghchi also met Witkoff in person in New York. So there is a concrete roadmap on the table, and Israel has no place at that table, neither as a negotiating partner nor as an observer. For Netanyahu, such a deal would be a political defeat, just a few weeks before the election of all times, because it would show that Washington is negotiating and reaching agreement with Tehran over his head.

This is where you see how great the pressure on him really is. And that pressure keeps growing, because Tehran has set Washington a deadline. Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, spoke of four or five days in which Washington must meet the conditions, completely and all at once. He left open what would come after that. He only spoke of the next step. By that count, the deadline runs out this weekend, in the very days this video is being released.

This is where we see the real reason why Jerusalem is talking about new strikes right now. For years, Netanyahu could rely on Washington standing by his side in the end, no matter what he did. This time the clock is ticking, and the decision between war and a deal could be made without him. And that is exactly what he can least afford before the election. But it goes even deeper. When the Israeli government looks at these talks, it does not simply see a diplomatic opportunity it could miss.

It sees a threat. And from that point of view, the road leads not to a deal, but to a war that could become bigger than anything we have seen this year. In essence, the official has already said so himself. He told Al-Hadath that Israel does not believe in an agreement between Washington and Tehran, even though coordination with the United States is strong and continuous. In other words: for the Netanyahu government, the real risk is not the failure of these talks, but their success.

In short, Jerusalem is increasingly convinced that a new war is coming, and this time it wants to decide for itself when it begins. But of all places, very different warnings are coming from Washington, and from its own military leadership. As the Washington Post reported at the end of August, the chiefs of the army, navy and air force as well as several regional commands warned in writing as early as August fourteenth that this war demands too much for too long. The navy chief and three regional commanders even explicitly refused to approve the plan to extend the operations.

Such dissent from within the military leadership rarely becomes public in Washington. In other words, the American armed forces do not want to drag this war out, while the Israeli government wants to reignite it. That is exactly the conflict Netanyahu can hardly say out loud. Because going it alone against a deeply bunkered mountain without American tankers, reconnaissance and missile defense would be a gamble with a completely uncertain outcome for Israel. The signals from Washington could hardly be clearer. Its own generals want out of this war, and the president does not want to be pushed by Netanyahu.

If Netanyahu strikes anyway, he does so against the advice of the very army Israel would depend on in an emergency. That brings us back to what we said at the very beginning of this video. Waiting is no longer enough for the Netanyahu government, and it no longer wants to rely on Washington either. In its view, Israel has to strike before a deal comes together that gives Iran a breathing space.

Because a deal would take away the campaign's most important story. It has only a little more than four weeks left before the election, and in its view every day without a deal is a day won. And then we will see how Washington reacts. Will Trump rein in his ally, or will he go along with it again in the end, just like in February? That is the big question, but one thing is becoming ever clearer: the Netanyahu government is betting everything on one card, and the whole region would pay the price. But Israel is not the only country creating facts on the ground in the region right now.

On the Red Sea, too, something has shifted in recent days that could fundamentally change the situation in the Gulf. What exactly happened there? You will find out in our next video. But before we say goodbye, we hope you enjoyed this analysis. If you did, subscribe to FR Report and tell us in the comments whether Netanyahu will strike before the election.

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