Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News of plans with the US to create a new Middle East with a nuclear-free Iran, while Israeli military forces continued to pound suspected Iran-backed groups in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.
Speaking to the US news channel on Saturday night, Netanyahu spoke of a changing region under the new US President Donald Trump, including a peace deal with Saudi Arabia.
“When we complete the changeover of the Middle East, when we cut the Iranian access down to even further than we've already cut it when we make sure that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons, when we destroy Hamas, that will set the stage for an additional agreement with the Saudis and with others,” he said.
Israel normalized relations with some Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates in the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords and the longest-serving Israeli premier hopes to do the same with Saudi Arabia.
As Trump reintroduced his maximum pressure policy on Iran on February 4, the issue of its nuclear program remains of grave concern to the Israeli PM who has long campaigned to have it crushed as Tehran continues uranium enrichment to weapons grade levels.
However, Trump has renewed his call for talks with Iran to reach a deal preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, emphasizing that he prefers negotiations over bombing the country's nuclear facilities.
On Saturday, Trump told The New York Post: “I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear. I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it. . . . They don’t want to die. Nobody wants to die.”
Iran’s military allies in the region also remain a priority for not only Israel but the US, which has also suffered at the hands of groups such as the Houthi militia in Yemen.
Israel is still in the midst of a fragile ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. However, in the West Bank, Israel believes Iran’s influence only continues to strengthen as Tehran diverts its focus.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Sunday that the armed forces are expanding Operation Iron Wall to include the Nur a-Shams refugee camp.
"We are crushing the terrorist infrastructure in the refugee camps and preventing its return. We will not allow the Iranian axis of evil to establish an eastern terrorist front that would threaten the settlements of Samaria and the seam line and the large population centers in Israel,” he said.
Last month, Katz said the West Bank has become a new focus for Tehran after Israel’s crushing debilitation of Hezbollah and Hamas.
Iran is taking advantage of the ruling Palestinian Authority's lack of political legitimacy in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to arm militants, the director of a leading research center in Ramallah told Iran International last month.
"We are seeing increasing efforts to promote Palestinian terrorism in Israel through the smuggling of advanced weapons, funding and guidance both on the part of the Iranian axis and on the part of the radical Sunni Islamic axis that is strengthening its grip on the region after the events in Syria,” Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah said.
“Iran exploits this vacuum left by the lack of legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and unpopularity of President Mahmoud Abbas to maintain and sustain this situation," he added.
