“We are in a conflict with Iran. We have to defend ourselves. We are determined to prevent Iran from going nuclear and we are determined to prevent Iran’s active, negative behavior in our region. They know we know how to act,” Gantz said, speaking in an interview with Channel 13.
Earlier on Sunday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reportedly convened a high-level meeting of defense and diplomatic officials regarding Iran, its nuclear program and the ongoing talks between Tehran and Washington toward a mutual return to the 2015 nuclear deal, a move that Israel staunchly opposes. In 2018, then-US president Donald Trump abrogated the agreement, imposing a crushing sanctions regime on Iran, and a year later, Tehran followed suit, enriching far more uranium and to far greater degrees of purity than was permitted under the deal.
According to the Walla news site, those in attendance — including Bennett, Gantz, and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, along with the heads of the National Security Council, military, Israel Defense Forces and Mossad, as well as other senior officials — mostly attempted to bring one another up to speed on where the negotiations between the US and Iran stood.
Though both sides have said that progress has been made in the talks, a number of issues have so far prevented a return to the deal by the two countries. READ MORE
