Netanyahu says Iran could produce nuclear weapon in very short time if not stopped after Israel launches air strikes

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “Jewish people refuse to be the victims of a nuclear Holocaust” as he targeted sites that could produce nuclear weapons in a “very short time.”Netanyahu reported that Iran had produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine atom bombs and began making “steps to weaponize” the uranium in recent months.“If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,” he said during a video address Friday morning.“This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival.Netanyahu claimed the weapon of mass destruction could be developed within a year.“Today the Jewish people refuse to be the victims of a nuclear Holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime,” he said.

“As prime minister, I made the clear time and again, Israel will never allow those who call for our annihilation to develop the means to achieve that goal.”Israel’s preemptive airstrikes, dubbed Operation: Rising Lion, targeted nuclear sites across Iran, including its capital, Tehran.Gen.Hossein Salami, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of the country’s military, are believed to have been killed in the barrage, as were two nuclear scientists, Iran’s state media said, according to the Times of Israel.The airstrikes destroyed radars and surface-to-air missile launchers in Iran, and explosions were reported at the Natanz nuclear facility.Netanyahu said the airstrikes targeted the “heart” of Iran’s nuclear enrichment and weaponization programs, its leading nuclear scientists and the ballistic missile facilities.The two Middle Eastern nations had been in recent talks led by the US in hopes of stopping Iran’s production of the highly enriched uranium.The talks stalled on June 4, when Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected the nuclear deal that would have allowed Tehran to continue its low-level uranium enrichment.Khamenei asserted that uranium en...