‘No place in Iran or the Middle East that the long arm of Israel will not reach’: Netanyahu warns
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Tel Aviv: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran's Ayatollah regime that those who target Israel will face consequences and that Israel can reach any location in Iran or the Middle East after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) precision strike.
Netanyahu made his first public comments on Saturday after an Israeli airstrike killed Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, in Beirut.
"There is no place in Iran or the Middle East that the long arm of Israel will not reach, and today you already know how true this is," he added.
Speaking from Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv on Saturday, Netanyahu said Israel's assassination of the Hezbollah leader "settled accounts with those responsible for the murder of countless Israelis and many citizens of other countries, including hundreds of Americans and dozens of Frenchmen".
The Israeli Prime Minister called Nasrallah's killing "a necessary condition for achieving the goals we have set".
The Israeli Prime Minister was referring to tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced by cross-border fire in the north of the country. Last week, Israel made returning residents to their homes in the north an explicit war aim.
"As long as Nasrallah lives, he would quickly restore the capabilities we took away from Hezbollah," Netanyahu said.
"That's why I gave the directive — and Nasrallah is no longer with us," he added.
Netanyahu made no reference to a US-led ceasefire proposal for the Israel-Lebanon border in his remarks, which come just a day after he made a combative speech at the United Nations General Assembly, vowing to continue the fight with Hezbollah — and swiping directly at Iran.
"I say to the Ayatollah's regime: whoever beat us, we will beat them," he said.
The Prime Minister said that Israel had arrived at a "historic turning point".
"We are determined to continue to strike at our enemies, return our residents to their homes, and return all our abductees. We do not forget them for a moment," he added.
With inputs from IANS