The Israeli prime minister on Monday vowed to continue targeting anyone who tries to harm the Jewish state, amid growing calls by Israeli officials for more direct strikes on Iran in response to the ongoing attacks on Tel Aviv by Tehran-backed Houthis.
"Israel is consolidating its deterrent power, it is striking at those who seek to harm it, it is collapsing Iran's terror branches one after the other," Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli Knesset.
Netanyahu said Tehran was still "busy licking the wounds from the blows we inflicted on them", adding he had instructed the Israeli military in recent days to attack strategic targets of Yemen's armed Houthi group in response to their missile launches at Israel.
"It is neither the first nor the last. We have destroyed significant terrorist assets that the Houthis have used, and the principle we have set is very simple – whoever tries to harm us, we will hit him with uncompromising force," Netanyahu added, according to a translation by the Israeli website Ynet.
The Israeli military and its American allies have launched multiple air raids against the Houthis' positions in recent days, but have failed to stop Houthi attacks on Israel.
The spokesman for the Houthis said the Iran-backed group launched two drone attacks against targets in Israel's Ashkelon and Tel Aviv on Monday.
Some Israeli officials believe their country must directly target the Islamic Republic, which has publicly declared its support for Yemen's Houthis.
"The solution is in Tehran: if you want to stop the Houthis' firing, you have to hit Iran directly," Israeli National Unity Front leader Benny Gantz told a meeting of his faction on Monday.
Mossad chief David Barnea also recommended Israel's political echelon attack Iran instead of Yemen's Houthis, a Ynet report quoted him as saying on Sunday. "We have to go for the head, for Iran," Barnea said in discussions on the issue in recent days.
In October 26 retaliatory strikes again Iran, Israel took out nearly the entirety of Iran’s air defense system, according to Western officials including the UK's Chief of Defense Staff.
In his Monday remarks, Netanyahu stopped short of explicitly discussing further attacks on Iran in response to the Houthis' strikes but vowed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
"We do not take our eyes off Iran that is threatening to eliminate us, and we are determined to stop Iran from reaching nuclear weapons as well as other weapons that could threaten our cities," he said.
Since May, top Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's adviser, Kamal Kharrazi, have warned that if Iran's nuclear installations are attacked, the Islamic Republic will shift its nuclear doctrine.
So far, Tehran has been insisting that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, in spite of having exceeded international limits on uranium enrichment and accelerating its nuclear program.
In October, 39 lawmakers called for changing the nuclear doctrine without mentioning an attack on nuclear facilities but citing tensions with Israel.
The calls for the pursuit of nuclear weapons have grown in Iran following the Israeli airstrikes destroying the Islamic Republic's air defense batteries.
