ByAARON GLICKJUNE 21, 2026 21:27Updated: JUNE 21, 2026 21:56Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel prevented Iran from "carrying out a plan to annihilate us" during a speech at the Jerusalem News Syndicate (JNS) International Policy Summit on Sunday."They would have had a nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb to do so," said Netanyahu. "We prevented that from happening."He said that the IDF had "removed an existential danger" through its actions against Iran over the past year."Had we not acted in Operation Rising Lion and then in Operation Roaring Lion, Iran would have had atomic bombs, and let me tell you something. They would have used them," he said. "That's what we prevented."Netanyahu emphasized the achievements of "the largest airstrike" in Israel's history, conducted in partnership with the United States."We destroyed Iran's nuclear infrastructure," said Netanyahu. "We knocked out 20 of their top nuclear scientists; 12 in Rising Lion, another eight in Roaring Lion."When you take out the scientists, it's very hard to make a nuclear weapon," he added. "We did hundreds of billions in damage to the IRGC; they may not recover.""For years, people told us, you cannot attack the soil of Iran," he stressed. "Yes, you can do Mossad operations, and we did quite a few. I authorized many, but you cannot send our military to Iran, but we changed that. We sent our brave pilots over the skies of Iran, and they took out targets, regime targets, terror targets, missile batteries, and missile pods. sites, and nuclear sites."We changed Israel's security doctrine. We initiate, we attack, we surprise, and we attack those enemies that seek our destruction, that seek to kill us; we attack them before they have a chance to do so."The prime minister described the achievements as having created the conditions for the fall of the Islamic regime and called on the Iranian people to seize the opportunity to "eventually" overthrow the Iranian government."We shattered Iran's terror axis," he said. "We took out Sinwar, we took out Haniyeh, we took out Deif, we took out tens of thousands of terrorists, and despite those who said it couldn't be done, we brought back to Israel every single hostage."Netanyahu called the return of Israeli hostages "an achievement that I think the entire people of Israel and the entire people of the free world should be proud of."He then turned to achievements against Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the beeper operation and the assasination of former chief Hassan Nasrallah."We exploded the beepers, we took out Nasrallah, we decimated Hezbollah's military machine, we prevented the Radwan Force from invading the Galilee, we destroyed over 90 percent of the 150,000 rockets and missiles that Hezbollah amassed against us."He further discussed the various security zones the IDF had established around Israel's borders amid the conflict."We established a security zone in Gaza, we established a security zone in Syria, we established a security zone in Lebanon, and we shall keep it as long as necessary to protect our people," said Netanyahu.Having arrived at the summit from a visit to his brother Yonatan Netanyahu's memorial, the prime minister discussed the lessons learned from the Entebbe operation, in which Yonatan Netanyahu was killed during the rescue of Israeli hostages in Uganda."Entebbe showed that if free people, if they mobilize their courage and muster their strength, they can overcome the worst tyrannies in the world, however threatening, however challenging," Prime Minister Netanyahu said.Returning to Iran, Netanyahu described the Islamic Republic as the "greatest sponsor of terrorism on the planet."Netanyahu cited his father, Benzion, who passed away in 2012, as saying: "Iran vows to destroy the Jewish state. The people of Israel are showing the world how a nation should behave in the face of an existential threat. Stare unflinchingly at the danger, calmly consider what needs to be done and what can be done, and be ready to enter the fray at the proper moment."Regarding Lebanon, Netanyahu vowed that the IDF would remain in the country's South "as long as we need to protect our people.""No country would be asked to do otherwise," he noted.Netanyahu accused terrorists of committing a "double crime" through the use of civilians as human shields, emphasizing the IDF's relatively low ratio of civilian deaths in combat."Normally, the ratio of non-combatants to combatants killed is 7-1, 8-1," he said. "In Gaza, it was much lower than that, despite all the lies.""The ratio in Lebanon is 5:1, 5 terrorists to every civilian, not the other way around," added Netanyahu. "We should be commended for it, not condemned.""We don't have a war with Lebanon, we have a war with Hezbollah," he added. "I've devoted my life to protecting the security of the state of Israel, and nothing will change that."This is a developing story.Follow us on Google