Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised President Donald Trump for his “bold decision” to strike three Iranian nuclear facilities located deep underground on Saturday.

Netanyahu made the comments in a video address posted shortly after Trump announced the completion of the operation targeting Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan, three nuclear sites that are deeply entrenched underground. 

“Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history. In Operation Rising Lion, Israel has done truly amazing things, but in tonight’s action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, America has been truly unsurpassed. It has done what no other country on Earth could do. History will record that President Trump acted to deny the world’s most dangerous regime, the world’s most dangerous weapons,” Netanyahu said. 

The Israeli prime minister argued that Trump’s “leadership today has created a pivot of history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace.”

“President Trump and I often say ‘peace through strength.’ First comes strength, then comes peace. And tonight, President Trump and the United States acted with a lot of strength. President Trump, I thank you, the people of Israel thank you, the forces of civilization thank you,” Netanyahu added.

Trump’s decision to carry out the strikes came just over a week after Israel began its military operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and before the end of the two-week period that the Trump administration had provided for a decision on potential strikes. The decision also came as analysts and lawmakers on Capitol Hill warned that Israel lacked the capacity to destroy deeply entrenched nuclear facilities and would need the U.S. to get involved.

The president said on Saturday that the U.S. dropped six bunker-busting bombs on Fordow and launched a total of 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. submarines at Natanz and Esfahan. He said that all three facilities were destroyed completely.

There is a chance the U.S. will join Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday, adding that “nobody knows” yet what he will decide.

“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump said in his first public comments about Iran after an hour-long Situation Room briefing on Tuesday. 

He said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “keep going.” 

“So far he’s doing a good job,” Trump added. 

He acknowledged that some of his supporters “are a little bit unhappy” about his posture toward Iran, but added that there are “some people that are very happy.” Trump further threw his support behind Israel’s actions: “All I’m doing is saying you can’t have a nuclear weapon. I’m trying to do it nicely, and then on day 61, I said, let’s go,” he said. 

The president said that Iran has contacted the White House to talk about resuming negotiations. But Trump suggested the time for negotiations may have passed.

“Iran’s got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate. And I said, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction?’” Trump said. “Why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country.”

Trump used the word “we” to describe the destruction of Iran’s air defense systems, without elaborating on the role the U.S. has played in assisting Israel. “We’ve totally captured the air,” Trump said Wednesday, following a post on Truth Social on Tuesday with similar language. 

In another Tuesday Truth Social post, Trump called for “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.” He explained to the reporters, “That means I’ve had it. OK? I’ve had it. I give up. No more. Then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there,” said Trump. 

He offered stridently critical comments about the Islamic Republic. 

“For 40 years they’ve been saying, ‘Death to America, death to Israel,’ death to anybody else that they didn’t like. They were bullies,” Trump said of the Iranian regime. “They were schoolyard bullies, and now they’re not bullies anymore, but we’ll see what happens. Look, nothing’s finished until it’s finished.” 

Trump warned again that Tehran cannot be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon — and intimated that Iran poses a direct threat to the United States.

“Is there anybody here that said it would be OK to have to have a hostile — very zealous, really — but to have a hostile country have a nuclear weapon that could destroy 25 miles, but much more than that, could destroy other nations, just by the breeze blowing the dust?” Trump asked. “That dust blows to other nations and they get decimated. This is just not a threat you can have. And we’ve been threatened by Iran for many years.”

At the end of the press conference, a reporter asked Trump for a message for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Good luck,” Trump said. When asked when his patience will run out, Trump responded simply: “It’s already run out.”

CNN contributor Scott Jennings traveled to Israel last week to bear witness to the atrocities Hamas committed during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. But in the wake of Israel launching its military operation to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities and prevent the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon, Jennings is witnessing more than he expected to on his first trip to the Jewish state.  

“Not only did I get to fulfill my mission of understanding deeply the horrors of Oct. 7, but being here watching the war unfold against Iran, I feel like I am here at the beginning of the war to defend Western civilization,” Jennings, who is traveling with the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation, told Jewish Insider from his hotel in Tiberias on Friday. “I think this has to end with a complete annihilation of Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon,” he said, calling on the U.S. to do “whatever we have to do to achieve that in concert with our special partner, Israel.” 

“I had gotten up at about 3 a.m. [Friday morning] to do a CNN appearance on the politics of the day. That’s when our phones went off with the emergency alert,” Jennings recalled. “I went out on the hotel balcony and for the next couple of hours watched the sky and saw lots of jets flying over. It was really the front end of the war watching the Israeli Air Force heading off towards bombing Iran.” 

Slated to head back to the U.S. on Saturday but now stuck in Israel while the country’s airspace remains closed, Jennings is making the most of his extended trip. On Sunday, he met with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. 

Earlier in the week, the group visited Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community where approximately one-quarter of the 400 residents were killed or taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, as well as the site of the Nova Music Festival massacre, where 378 people were killed. They also met with the mother of Alon Ohel, who was kidnapped from the festival and remains held captive in Gaza. 

Jennings, who served as special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs in the George W. Bush administration, said that his message to Americans amid Israel’s war with Iran is the “need to understand what’s going on here is nothing short of the fight for Western civilization.”

“Israel is the one fighting it and they’re fighting it in their own backyard,” he told JI. “But these people who hate Israel also chant ‘death to America.’ To allow Iran to continue to develop terror proxies and nuclear weapons, it’s just not a possibility for the West. Israel’s taking care of that and we should be fully supportive of that.” 

Jennings expressed “continuing rolling disappointment” with Senate Democrats, who have voiced divided responses on Israel’s strikes on Iran. 

“This idea that everything must be turned into some sort of anti-[President Donald] Trump narrative is ridiculous,” the conservative commentator said. “I’ve been thoroughly unimpressed. There are a few Democrats who stepped forward and said the right thing,” he continued, mentioning Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who on Friday criticized his Democratic colleagues in Congress who have spoken out against Israel’s attack on Iran, calling it “astonishing” to see members of his party treat Israel’s actions as escalatory. 

“Looking at this situation — literally looking at it, watching missiles fly over my head,” Jennings continued, “we should be thankful that Israel is willing to take bold, decisive steps to defeat the enemy of the West. We should also be thankful that President Trump participated in this.” 

“President Trump has clearly said his policy is that Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon,” Jennings said. “I think President Trump has played this smart so far and if it all ends with a neutered Iran thanks to Israel and the U.S. working together, that’s a great outcome,” he said. 

Trump has continued to reject assertions that the U.S. is involved in Israel’s strikes on Iran. “We’re not involved in it. It’s possible we could get involved. But we are not at this moment involved,” the president said on Sunday. 

By Monday afternoon, Iran had fired around 350 missiles and several drones at Israel, killing 24 Israelis and injuring almost 600 others.

But amid the chaos and fear, Jennings said he’s observed that Israelis are overwhelmingly united — even across the political spectrum. 

“Talking to people, you get a sense of resolve,” he told JI. “They have differences of opinion on certain things but everybody seems to agree — you can’t live with Hamas next door. Everybody seems to agree that Iran is the head of the octopus here. From north to south, what you get a feeling for is this incredible resolve and clarity of purpose when it comes to defeating the enemies of Israel. This is not happening in a faraway land. What happened to them happened in their homes, in their [kibbutzim], at a music festival. It’s up close and personal. You get a feeling that they’re still living with that trauma.”  

“You get a real feeling for the camaraderie and sense of purpose,” Jennings said, calling the trip “a real eye-opening experience.”

“I wasn’t sure what to expect,” he continued. “I get the feeling everyone is resolved to endure whatever sacrifices they have to in order to put an end to this existential threat once and for all.” 

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) criticized his Democratic colleagues in Congress who have spoken out against Israel’s attack on Iran, calling it “astonishing” to see members of his party treat Israel’s actions as escalatory. 

Fetterman spoke to Jewish Insider on Friday for an interview in the wake of Israel launching its military operation to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities and prevent the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon. 

The Pennsylvania senator said he could not fathom how some Democrats on Capitol Hill could accuse the Jewish state of launching the strikes to upend the Trump administration’s nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

Fetterman didn’t mention any of his Democratic colleagues by name, but many have been critical of the Iranian strikes. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), for instance, went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday morning and said that Israel’s strike on Iran was “pretty transparent that this was an effort to submarine, to undermine our diplomacy.”

“It was just astonishing to see colleagues criticizing these things. It’s like, do you think you can negotiate with that regime? Do you think you want to run that scenario and allow them to acquire 1,000 pounds of weapons grade uranium? I can’t understand, I can’t even begin to understand that,” Fetterman told JI.

“I can’t imagine why they would say that. Remember, Iran tries to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran has created and spent billions of dollars to build those destructive proxies like Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis. Why can’t we talk about that? Why can’t we talk about the absolute imperative to keep Iran accountable for what they’ve done? That’s exactly part of what Israel did last night, as well,” he continued.

The Pennsylvania Democrat praised the opening salvos of the operation as “absolutely spectacular,” citing the “precision in targeting people.”

”They eliminated the generals and those scientists in their beds at their building, and they didn’t take out the whole building. It was just their specific apartments. I mean, that is truly remarkable. … It’s like Beepers 2.0, the kind of things they’ve done. Like I said, I am constantly blown away by the sophistication and their lethality,” Fetterman said, referring to the Israeli pager operation that took out senior Hezbollah leaders.

“I think I might have been the only one openly calling for that [striking the nuclear facilities now]. I’m never going to negotiate with that regime. You can never trust them, and the only thing they’re going to respond to, that they respect, are exactly the kind of things that [Israel] did last night. … Any potential path for an enduring peace in the Middle East, these are the kind of steps that do that,” he added.

Fetterman disputed the narrative that the U.S. supporting Israel in targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities could increase the prospect of a regional war. “If Iran is going to take their big, big swing, they would have done that by now. Just imagine how exposed they are, even how [exposed] they were earlier this year after what Israel had done taking out Hezbollah,” he told JI. 

“Hezbollah ain’t talking tough anymore. They’re not talking about any kinds of actions, they’re just whimpering, and that’s my point. Iran can’t fight for s**t. … They just shot their big shot, a couple junkie rockets, and it’s like, that’s what you’ve got?” Fetterman asked.

Israeli leaders said they carried out a series of preemptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and key personnel early Thursday evening, declaring a national state of emergency as it prepares for anticipated Iranian retaliation.

U.S. officials took steps to distance themselves from the Israeli strikes, emphasizing that it was not involved.

Israelis were instructed to stay close to protected spaces and avoid gatherings, educational activities have been canceled and the Israeli airspace has been closed. 

The Israeli Embassy in Washington issued a statement that Israel had launched a “preemptive, precise, combined offensive to strike Iran’s nuclear program,” and that Israeli jets had been involved in the “first stage” targeting “dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran.”

“Today, Iran is closer than ever to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Iranian regime are an existential threat to the state of Israel and to the wider world,” the statement reads. “The State of Israel has no choice but to fulfill the obligation to act in defense of its citizens and will continue to do so everywhere it is required to do so, as we have done in the past.”

In a prerecorded statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the operation, named “Rising Lion,” was aimed at “rolling back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival,” and would “continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”

He said that Israel had targeted Iran’s nuclear enrichment and weaponization program, its enrichment facility in Natanz, its leading nuclear scientist working on the bomb and its ballistic missile program.

Netanyahu said that Iran has amassed enough uranium for nine atomic bombs in recent years, and taken “steps it has never taken before … to weaponize this enriched uranium” and if not stopped, could produce a nuclear weapon within a few months.

“When enemies vow to destroy you, believe them. When enemies build weapons of mass destruction, stop them,” Netanyahu said. “As the Bible teaches us, when someone comes to kill you, rise and act first. This is exactly what Israel has done today. We have risen like lions to defend ourselves.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement the U.S. did not participate in the strikes and urged Iran not to retaliate against American targets.

“Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense. President Trump and the Administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel,” Rubio said.

Just hours before the strikes, President Donald Trump said on social media the U.S. remains “committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue!” and “They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon.”

Dana Stroul, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East under President Joe Biden and the research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the strike “appears to be the first wave of an Israeli campaign.”

“The initial target set in downtown Tehran, including what appear to be precise strikes at the residences of senior officials, suggests an intent to paralyze the leadership and command and control of the regime,” Stroul told Jewish Insider. “Follow-on sets of targets could be much broader and geographically diverse.”

The strikes come a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to censure Iran for noncompliance with nonproliferation obligations.

“The Iranian regime appears to have grievously misunderestimated Israeli intent — in a post-Oct. 7 environment, the Israelis were not going to sit back and wait while Iran took additional aggressive steps in its nuclear program as the IAEA definitively confirmed its noncompliance,” Stroul added. “What remains unclear is whether or not President Trump gave the greenlight only days before his envoy Steve Witkoff was supposed to travel back to the region for another round of nuclear negotiations.”

Trump’s self-imposed two-month deadline for nuclear talks expired this week.

Stroul said that Rubio’s comments were “stunning.”

“The American secretary of state is unambiguously stating publicly that Israel made its decision on its own,” she explained. “When Rubio says: Iran should not target U.S. personnel or U.S. interests, there is a very real risk that the Iranians implicitly understand this as a green light to directly attack Israel. What is left unsaid is whether or not the United States will actively participate in the defense of Israel as it did when Iran directly attacked in April and October of last year.”

She said the “ambiguity or suggestion of daylight between the United States and Israel runs the risk of emboldening adversaries.”

President Donald Trump confirmed reports that he warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call last week not to proceed with plans to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities while the U.S. and Iran continue negotiations, saying that he told the Israeli leader a strike “is not appropriate right now.” 

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the president responded to a question about the validity of the report by saying, “I’d like to be honest. Yes, I did.”

Pressed about the nature of the conversation, the president clarified, “It’s not a warning, I said I don’t think it’s appropriate. We’re having very good discussions with them [Iran] and I don’t think it’s appropriate right now.”

Trump suggested the U.S. may strike a “very strong document” with Iran “where we can go in with inspectors, we can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want but nobody’s getting killed. We can blow up a lab but nobody’s going to be in the lab, as opposed to everybody being in the lab and blowing it up, right? Two ways of doing it.”

He affirmed he told Netanyahu to hold off “because we’re very close to a solution. Now, that could change at any moment. It could change with a phone call. But right now I think they want to make a deal and if we can make a deal, save a lot of lives.”

He said a deal with Iran could be reached “over the next couple of weeks.”

Netanyahu, for his part, denied a New York Times report that he had been pressing for military action against Iran, which could upend the talks, calling it “fake news.” 

On the new U.S.-Israel aid distribution mechanism in Gaza that went into effect this week, Trump said, “We’re dealing with the whole situation in Gaza. We’re getting food to the people.” 

Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, speaking beside Trump, added, “I think that we are on the precipice of sending out a new terms sheet that hopefully will be delivered later on today. The president is going to review it. And I have some very good feelings about getting to a long-term resolution — temporary ceasefire and a long-term resolution, a peaceful resolution of that conflict.” Witkoff did not expand on the details of the “terms sheet” nor to whom it will be delivered.