Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel’s attack on Iran last month degraded its defence and missile production capabilities, and also hit an element of its nuclear program.
“It’s not a secret,” Netanyahu said in a speech in parliament. “There is a specific component in their nuclear program that was hit in this attack.”
However, Netanyahu added that Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon had not been blocked.
Israel has dealt the Iran-backed Hezbollah big blows since launching an offensive against the group in September, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and pounding Lebanon with airstrikes. Hezbollah has kept up rocket fire into northern Israel, where sirens sounded again on Monday.
Israel launched its offensive after almost a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah. Its declared goal is to dismantle Hezbollah’s capabilities to secure the return of tens of thousands of Israelis who evacuated the north due to rockets fired by Hezbollah in solidarity with its ally Hamas as the Gaza war began more than a year ago.
Israel’s campaign has killed 3,481 people in Lebanon since hostilities began, most since late September, Lebanese authorities say, and uprooted more than a million people.
The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Hezbollah strikes have killed 43 civilians in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, while 73 soldiers have been killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli figures.
