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Source: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/byxqdfnyxg#autoplay
Netanyahu: "Without Our Help, Assad's Regime Wouldn't Have Fallen"
(Ynet News) Itamar Eichner - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed Sunday that Israel moved up its pager operation against Hizbullah by several weeks after intelligence indicated that three pagers sent from Lebanon were being scanned in Iran. "We launched the campaign in Lebanon three weeks earlier than planned," he told the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) conference in Jerusalem on Sunday. "Within six to seven hours, we destroyed most of the weapons Nasrallah had stockpiled over 30 years." Netanyahu also disclosed that Israeli F-16 fighter jets were deployed to intercept Iranian aircraft en route to Damascus to prevent the collapse of Bashar Assad's regime. "Without our help, Assad's regime wouldn't have fallen," he said, adding that Israel destroyed 90% of the Iranian weaponry transferred to Syria to ensure Assad's survival. Turning to Iran's nuclear program, Netanyahu noted that Israeli operations had delayed Iran's progress toward a nuclear bomb by about a decade. He warned that Iran had made significant advances in uranium enrichment and weaponization. "It's not enough to prevent enrichment - they must lose the capability altogether," he said, stressing the need to destroy centrifuges and remove enriched uranium from Iranian territory. He rejected the idea of establishing a Palestinian state, saying, "We tried that already" in Gaza. "Hamas won't be there. But we're not putting the PA there either," he said. "Why replace one regime sworn to destroy us with another regime sworn to destroy us?" He added that Israel would continue to maintain military control over Gaza after the fighting ends.