Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Tuesday that Israel's fighter jets "can reach anywhere in the Middle East, including Iran," in his latest comments directed at his country's arch-foe. While visiting an air force base where he inspected F-35 jets made by US firm Lockheed Martin, Netanyahu issued a video with one of the planes behind him. "Recently, Iran has been threatening the destruction of Israel," he said at the Nevatim air base in southern Israel.
"It would do well to remember that these planes can reach anywhere in the Middle East, including Iran and certainly Syria." Netanyahu has issued a series of statements against Iran in recent weeks. They follow the Islamic republic's decision to begin breaching some commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and attacks in the Gulf that Israel and the United States blame on Iran.
On Sunday, Netanyahu called an announcement by Iran that it would exceed the uranium enrichment cap set by the troubled accord a "very dangerous step". He urged European countries to sanction Iran in response. On Monday, Iran breached the enrichment cap as it seeks to press other parties into keeping their side of the bargain under the nuclear deal. Netanyahu opposed the accord and urged US President Donald Trump to withdraw from it, which he eventually did.
Despite having opposed the deal, Netanyahu is now calling on European nations to enforce its parameters as he and the United States seek to further pressure Iran. Israel has also carried out hundreds of strikes in neighbouring Syria against what it says are Iranian and Hezbollah military targets. It has vowed to keep Iran, which has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country's civil war, from entrenching itself militarily there. In May 2018, Israel's military said it had become the first country to use F-35s in combat.
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