Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned Iran’s recent moves to increase its uranium enrichment efforts, and vowed that Israel would prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"Iran is intensifying its aggression. It wants to hurt Israel,” said Netanyahu Wednesday.
"I reiterate: we will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons."
Netanyahu spoke out a day after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared that Iran would move forward quickly with gas injection at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant outside of the city of Qom, beginning Wednesday. A total of 1,044 centrifuges will be injected with uranium gas.
Later on Tuesday, Iran announced that it would enrich uranium to 5% at the Fordow nuclear facility, in a further violation of the 2015 nuclear deal it signed with world powers.
US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 deal last May. Since that time, his administration has ramped up the sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
In response to the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and its imposition of sanctions, Iran has gradually scaled back its compliance with the 2015 deal.
The three European parties to the accord – France, Britain and Germany – along with the EU diplomatic service have tried to keep Iran in the deal despite the US sanctions.
