A day after US officials confirmed that President Donald Trump had vetoed Israeli plans to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that the quickest way to end this conflict is for Israel to take out the Ayatollah.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remark came as the Israel-Iran conflict enters the fourth day, with both sides raining missiles on each other, even targeting civilians. Analysts fear that the situation has spiraled out of control and both nations have told its citizens to be prepared for the long haul.
“It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict,” Mr Netanyahu told ABC News in an interview when asked about reports that US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the supreme leader out of concern it would intensify the Iran-Israel showdown.
“The ‘forever war’ is what Iran wants, and they’re bringing us to the brink of a nuclear war,” Mr Netanyahu said, adding that “In fact, what Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression, and we can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil.”
Reports have suggested that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his entire family have been moved to a secure location – a bunker at an undisclosed area in Iran. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are shielding the Supreme Leader and as of Monday night, he is safe and overseeing the developments and giving orders to the military.
The news of Donald Trump vetoing Israel’s decision to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader was first reported by global news agency Reuters, who had quoted senior unnamed officials in the Trump Administration as confirming it.
They said that the Israelis reported that they had an opportunity to kill the top Iranian leader, but President Trump waved them off of the plan. The officials did not say whether Trump himself delivered the message. But the US President has been in frequent communications with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
When Netanyahu was asked about this on Fox News on Sunday, he had said, “There’s so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I’m not going to get into that,” adding that “I can tell you, I think that we do what we need to do, we’ll do what we need to do. And I think the United States knows what is good for the United States.”
