Mission of Israel briefing on the situation in the Middle East

We believe them. We saw what they were doing in terms of building the capabilities the nuclear capabilities, the ballistic missiles. TABLE Foxes you know, violating so many resolution Security Council pollution 2, 2, 31 exclusive program ballistic systems. And I think you know what you all saw a few weeks ago in January, the way they treated the Iranian people. The numbers in our home say 30,000, I would say 40,000.

We have testimonies for people on the ground. And I think you know, it all added up and there was an also operational opportunity to take action. That's exactly what we did. Those things capable targeting those capabilities, the nuclear capabilities, the ballistic. I will speak a lot about the ballistic missiles today.

One thing I want to take from you, Paul, you know, you came to you about the nuclear program and about the ballistic missiles. For us it's something that we have to start to speak about in international arena the UN because it is imminent threat. When you look at the what they were planning to do and they number of missiles that Iran is producing today. So joint operation with the U.S. there is no daylight between Israel and the U.S. we shared intelligence. We decided which air force is targeting which area.

The first few days we focused on making sure that we gain air superiority was very important to us. And. And we achieved it. You know, our pilots were able to maneuver and today they can fly over Iran. Almost, you know, you never know, you always have, you know, threats.

But almost they fly completely freely and achieving the goals over the entire country which Iran is a huge country. But I don't know if you can. You can see the sizes. But you compare it to Israel, you know, it's. And it's a long operation by the way.

It takes our pilots to an hour and a half just to fly. To reach the destination they have to perform the task and two hours and a half flying back. As you can see also we don't have any border with Iran. We have no conflict with Iran. No border conflict.

We don't fight over resources. So the entire conflict is about radical ideology that when the revolution took place, Iran decided that the hate against the US and Israel that will keep the regime strong. And that's why we are fighting today. Because Yakuta, why Iran actually is thinking about Israel why they are building those capabilities against Israel. One last point before we move on is the proxies.

So Iran decided to build the nuclear capabilities. Invest a lot the ballistic missiles huge industry. And the proxies. And the proxies. It's important because they invested billions of dollars in actually giving funds to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which we know we'll speak about what's happening today in Lebanon, unfortunately, to the Houthis in Yemen, other militias in Syria, in Iraq, Hamas for sure, huge operation.

So when I say proxies, it's not somebody you support. It's an industry. Only in the last year, since the operation we had in the summer, Hezbollah received from Teheran $1 billion. So think about that. So for them, it's part of their entity is to keep those proxies.

And we see that today Hezbollah actually following the orders of Tehran. So those issues were the main one. We can move to the next slide, please.

So, you know, we are diplomats, and we believe in diplomacy. Diplomacy was given every chance. You know, negotiations. A lot of things that we discussed here at the UN Even our closest allies, the United States, tried to negotiate with Iran. Especially envoy Witkoff and Mr. Kushner held meetings in Paris, in Geneva, trying to negotiate, but it didn't go nowhere.

We identified that they are buying time. They play on delays, and basically they wanted to buy more time and to bring us to a point. I call it point of no return, basically, which be a point that is going to be very hard for us to take action, and not only because of the nuclear capability that we all worried about, but also because of the ballistic missile capabilities. Once they create the number of ballistic missiles, that no one can stop them. So that will be the shield for them to continue with the nuclear program.

So once everybody here around the world spoke about nuclear program, nuclear program, Iran put a lot of efforts into the ballistic missiles, and they looked more into the quantity than the quality of the missiles. So we'll go later today and we'll expose you information about the numbers. But they realized that if they have the quantity of thousands of ballistic missiles, no one can touch them. And then they have immunity to. To continue with the nuclear program.

You know, our goals in this operation are clear. To prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, to degrade Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, and to create the conditions for the Iranian people to control their future. That's a very important question. I'm sure you will ask. So what's next?

So we cannot speak on behalf of the Iranian people, but we want to enable them to take action. And especially after what happened in January, very hard for them to take the streets again. But it's important for us to create the conditions that they can do it. We are trying to limit escalation across the region. Iran is doing exactly the opposite.

We saw yesterday what happened in the Security Council when the resolution of The JCC passed with the support of 135. But you know, they, out of desperation, you know, started to attack the Gulf countries, Cyprus, Turkey. And you ask yourself, what is the reasoning behind it? So they want to make it a global conflict. Also, you know, disturbing the naval passage at the Strait of Hormuz.

Our goal is to minimize civilian casualties, so we target military targets. They're doing exactly the opposite. And you can ask our colleagues from the Gulf countries, you know, if you don't believe me, you know, they're targeting hotels in Dubai, not military bases, they're targeting airports. So for them, they want to see more civilian casualties and we want to minimize civilian casualties.

And it's a challenge for us. Also we'll talk about Lebanon, but you know, now we are facing another front in Lebanon. And also we see that Hezbollah, they have the capability to target military sites, but they choose to target communities in northern part of Israel.

So a few points about the regime. So, you know, we are, maybe we're naive, but we believe that after the operation in the summer, that something will change, that the Iranian regime will recalculate its efforts. You know, because it's not, you know, the US and Israel attacked Iran. You know, it was massive, 12 days. So we expected that they will sit down and say, okay, what do we do next?

And unfortunately, nothing changed. They did not change course. It actually accelerated its nuclear program and long range missile developments and they expanded the program to fortified and to go underground, to put everything beneath the ground, to put it in mountains. You know, when we speak about the nuclear program and always you will hear the Albanian representative saying, no, it's peaceful. If it's peaceful, why you hide it?

Why you actually go into a mountain, spend hundreds of millions to put it underground? Why you enrich your end to 60% if it's peaceful? Allow inspectors and many of the countries here use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It's not the case with Iran. So once we realized that they are fortifying the facilities, we decided to take action.

And I will note, you know, we quote special envoy Witkoff from the negotiations. When he started to negotiate with the Iranians, they didn't hide. They actually were very proud about the fact that they have a stockpile of 460 kilogram of enriched uranium and they can develop 11 bombs. So that's when they entered the room, said, you know what, we have it already

that the attitude of Iran, and I will add one more point, that everyone speaks about the stockpile of the enriched uranium, but no one speaks about thousands of kilograms of uranium which is enriched to a lower level. I'm not an expert, but from what I learned that it is very easy if you have uranium which is enriched to upgrade it to a higher level. So we all speak about the 460kg and ideas about taking it out, but no one is addressing the fact that you have thousands of kilograms of enriched uranium, lower levels, but very fast they can convert it to higher level.

This is the most important part of my briefing. The Iranian surface to surface missiles. You know, it's a huge arsenal of missiles. It's part of the strategic goals of the regime. You know, they take a lot of pride in it.

And you know, as we speak, you know, you can look at the numbers and I see many, many nations here. I don't want to make any mistake, but you know, I would say 99% Iran has more ballistic missiles. All of those countries in this room, even combined. So just think about it, thousands of ballistic missiles, thousands that they had. And we followed it and you can see we actually have the numbers here on the left, the Production rate of 100 missile per month that the industry that they built in different locations in Iran, they spread it in different places.

And when we decided to attack last summer, the estimation was approximately 3,000 ballistic missiles that have surface to surface missiles. It's a huge number, 3,000. Think about that, that they can operate. We were able to degrade the capabilities, but then we saw, but very fast, they started to rebuild the factories and to increase the production rate. And the recovery trend was impressive, unfortunately.

And it brought it 13 days ago to approximately 2500 missiles. Now if, let's assume we wouldn't have decided to attack Iran two weeks ago by the year of 2027, look, they would have achieved the goal of 8,000 more than the number of the US and Russia and China. They would have been number one around in the world by the year of 2027. In the number, I don't go into the quality and the precision. But they don't care about it because they don't target military sites.

You know, they can send it to a city, send it to Dubai, you send it to Manama, to Tel Aviv. It doesn't have to be accurate, you just send the numbers. So this is a crucial piece of information here because we realize that we have to take action. And as we speak to now, the US and Israel, we are targeting that infrastructure of the ballistic missiles. And they have a very massive infrastructure of ballistic missiles.

So we don't know what will be the outcome of the operation in terms of the regime, in terms of the people of Iran. But one thing I can guarantee you that they will not have that capability. We're going to push them back and eliminate that capability, because that's a real threat. And, you know, today you look at Israel, but I want to ask you for one minute. Imagine that Iran decided that you are the enemy.

I don't know, for whatever reason, they will think that, you know, I don't want to name names here, but they will think that you are the enemy. And they will decide to take this capability of thousands of ballistic missiles and launch it to your country. And they are doing it now to the Gulf countries, you know, so their neighbors, so it can happen. So I think what we are doing now, degrading the capabilities of Iran with the surface to surface missiles, it's a crucial, and it will serve the world. And I will quote Councilor Merz, who say that Israel is doing the dirty work for the world so you can support this operation.

Not support this operation, but this point of taking that capability from the Iranian regime, I truly believe it's beneficial for all of us.

So, you know, at the beginning of the war, we also eliminated Ali Khamenei. He ruled Iran since 1989. The spiritual leader. He was involved in many attacks against US troops, against targets in Europe, Latin America, and for sure, Israel. You know, I think we proved that we have very good intelligence, and we attacked him in a bunker where he saw that he cannot be touched.

So we proved that we have the intel capabilities, but also the precise munition to get to, you know, many countries, you have bunkers, you know, for where you keep the leadership in times of emergency. So he thought that he's safe where he was hiding. We go to the next one very quickly. Also the leadership of the irgc, you know, I don't think you know those names, but we followed them very carefully, the way they speak against the U.S. against Israel, you know, threatening us in charge of many terror activities in the region. I mentioned the proxies.

You know, the proxies. It's a huge operation. You know, you think, oh, they support Hezbollah, but you have to fund them, you have to train them, and also you need to manage it. So many of those people here are the architect of the proxies. And we all feel safer when they are not with us anymore.

So in terms of the Iranian attacks, I think you know that. And we heard it yesterday from our colleague from Bahrain in the Security Council. You know, basically, you know, they are Neighbors and they decided to destabilize the region by attacking so many locations. You don't have Cyprus in Turkey, but it also happened. And basically they want to destabilize the region, create chaos.

I don't know what was the strategy of Iran, but I think yesterday they realized that it wasn't working. Because I saw the determination of the Gulf countries and others to take diplomatic actions and other actions against Iran in order to defend themselves.

My last point today will be about Lebanon. And that's unfortunate because from the reports I received at phone calls I held this morning, we see escalation. And when I say escalation, it's basically orders coming from Tehran to be route to Hezbollah to escalate the attacks against Israel, which will require us to take actions. So last night, you know, hundreds of rockets flew into Israel at night, not from Iran. Mostly there were few from Iran, but most of them came from Lebanon.

And in this map, I want to remind you, most of you are familiar with that. There is a resolution of the Security Council Revolution 1701, which basically said that is the border between the blue line between Israel and Lebanon. The resolutions say that between the border and the Litany river, which is right here, this area will be free of any military beside UNIFIL and the Lebanese military. Unfortunately, Hezbollah is still there and the Lebanese army was not able, despite the declaration they made, to push them away. And today they are using this area to send rockets into Israel.

It's a different scenario because when we get a rocket flying from Iran, we can alert, we can tell people, you have few minutes. Go stay next to the shelter, you know, park your car, get ready.

Rockets flying from Lebanon. It takes 30 seconds to get to the communities in northern Israel. 30 seconds. You know, imagine now you're driving with your three kids in your car and all of a sudden you hear the sirens and you have 30 seconds. You need to park the car and you need to decide which kid you take first, unbuckle them, get out of the car.

And there were incidents that, you know, the mother actually had to decide which kid she takes first to the shutter. She cannot take all of them, the small kids, for 30 seconds. And it's hundreds of rockets flying into Israel. So we have no other option. We have to operate.

And that's what we do now. We attack mainly with our air force, different sites in Lebanon against Hezbollah. And we will not be able to sustain it if Hezbollah will continue to send those rockets into Israel. Now, the reason Hezbollah is attacking Israel today is not to protect Lebanon, not to protect the Lebanese people because they got clear instructions from Tehran to open a fire against Israel. So we have to pay attention to what's happening in Lebanon.

There are many countries that try to negotiate and we welcome negotiations, but we cannot negotiate while rockets are flying into our northern border. So we will hopefully the Lebanese military will be more efficient, will take action against Hezbollah. If they will not do it, we will have to maneuver. We will have to take action and to stop the rockets flying into Israel. So this is what my part.

I would now would like to invite Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani to give us an update, operational update from the idf. And after that, we will open the discussion for questions. Thank you.

Well, hello everyone and thanks for having me. This is a great honor and a great opportunity to speak to you guys. And I'll do my best to give the update of what the current situation is on the ground, both in Iran and in our northern border. And I would be more than happy to take questions afterwards. So first I want to begin.

Our ambassador gave a great, a great briefing. I want to begin by speaking actually before this operation. The war between Israel and Iran hasn't started on February 28, and it hasn't started in June of last year. It started a long time ago. This Iranian regime has vowed for years to destroy the state of Israel, to annihilate the state of Israel.

They have put a clock in their capital city counting down to the destruction of Israel, and they have acted upon that. So Israel's actions on February 28 are not a beginning of a war. It is Israel taking action against a country that has declared war and against Israel many years ago. And not just declared. The Sarani regime fired hundreds of ballistic missiles on April and October of 24, twice of 2024.

But more importantly, they have promoted an ideology of a ring of fire around Israel for years. Dozens of billions of dollars spent over decades to build terror armies on our border. Terror armies that have killed thousands of people from all around the world, from all nationalities, of course, a lot of Israelis, but not only a lot of their money to this day, by the way, this is intelligence that I can share with you guys even to this day. Money that Hamas is using to fund themselves to survive is coming from this Iranian regime. As our Ambassador said in 2025, while the people of Iran had no drinking water, almost a billion dollars was spent on their proxies, most of it going to Hezbollah.

But not only so this is an Iranian regime that has called war against Israel years ago. They have built an Entire army called the Quds forces. Quds means Jerusalem. They called an army after a capital city, all with the goal unilateral. Imagine, imagine a nation building an army named after the capital of another army with the goal of destroying that country, spending billions of dollars over years to do that.

Qasem Soleimani was one of those main people who was driving for that. So this is not something new. Iran has tried to assassinate our Minister of Defense. Whites that have tried to carry out assassinations in Israel in Tel Aviv, one of our largest cities. So when Israel looks at Ali Khamenei, Ali Khamenei was, by the way, the commander in chief, the person in charge, you can call him the Minister of Defense.

He was directly directing the IRGC and different establishments in the Iranian security establishment. So he was part. He was a legal target. And he was not just a legal target. He was directing the attacks against Israel and the plan of destruction of Israel, as they called it.

And they, as I said, they tried eliminating our Minister of Defense, but we, they weren't able to do it. But we were able to eliminate Ali Khamenei, who's one of the most dangerous people in recent history. The conclusions of the Iranian regime of Ali KHAMENEI after the 12 day war in June were very dangerous conclusions. There were two. One, as our ambassador said, is that their plan, their nuclear plan was, was a good plan.

The only thing is it wasn't dug deep enough in the ground and the bombers were able to find them. Their conclusion, and as I said, they're very patient. They, they put a clock for 25 years to destroy Israel. They're patient people, the Iranian people. And their plan was to fortify and conceal their nuclear program.

So when they do actually again start promoting it again in a very dangerous way, it will be too late for us to act against it. They will have immunity, physical immunity, because of the mountainside. The second thing is they wanted immunity of deterrence by ballistic missiles by having 2, 3, 4, 5 times the amount of ballistic missiles they have right now. And we're seeing what the ballistic missiles they have right now are doing to the entire region, deterring the entire region. They're trying to disrupt the entire global economics.

And we can just imagine if they had five times the amounts of missile and if they had a nuclear warhead, what would be the scenario that the world would be? The second thing that was very, very alarming is they understood that what they consider success from the 12 Day War in June is killing civilians. That was their only achievement. In the 12 Day War. And they consider that success.

And they went, they took that strategy five steps forward. They have been targeting in this operation in the last 13 days. They have fired hundreds of missiles and UAVs towards civilians and military assets in 12 countries. But they have targeted civilians purposely and they have used also weapons. They have used cluster bombs dozens of times against civil civilians.

Now they, most of their fire towards Israel has been directed at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, at the large cities. They are directing their fire towards large cities, the center of mass population, and firing cluster bombs. Cluster bomb is a bomb that separates from many large pieces, can disperse over 10 kilometers, 20, 30 smaller bombs that cover an area of 10 kilometers that can kill civilians. Now this is a war crime. The Iranian regime is conducting war crimes against the civilians of Israel and civilians in the entire region and even beyond the region, even reaching now to European countries.

This is a regime that is purposely targeting civilians. We see this in our intelligence that I can share with you guys. We see this in the way they are directing their fire. And we see, and we see it on the ground in the results. Sadly.

We've had in the 12 day war in June, we've had 34 people killed. In this war, we've had 12 people killed, all civilians. We've had one soldier who was a soldier on vacation, who was home in the 12 day warned you they have been targeting civilians and their goal is to have as many possible casualties as they can. The second thing is they're firing smaller amounts, but they're trying to create a lot of sirens across the Middle east and in Israel. The idea is to terrorize the populations in all those countries to make sure that they are constantly running to the shelters, that they are terrorizing those civilians and trying to tire them out.

So this is a little bit about the Iranian strategy that's important to understand. So when we went out on this operation, we understood they're moving forward with tens soon and their production pace was getting higher and higher, from dozens to hundreds of missiles, new missiles a week, a month, I mean, and hundreds and working towards producing thousands of new ballistic missiles a year. And our ambassador showed you the graph of how fast they were recovering from the 12 Day War and what their plan was, moving forward. And the second thing that I spoke about was their nuclear program that made it urgent for us to act against before it was too late, before they were able to have physical immunity and an immunity of deterrence against the State of Israel, but not only against the region, but this is a regime that IS hasn't kept their plans a secret. They've been public about it.

They said, death to Israel, death to America, death to the West. And they've act upon it. They are the main actor creating this coalition that has been trying to annihilate the State of Israel for the last two and a half years. Hamas, Kisbara, the Houthis, different terror groups in Syria and Iraq and everywhere the Iranian regime touches, they bring destruction for those own countries.

They brought destruction over the country of Iran. And we have no war with the people of Iran, but they brought destruction over the people of Iran. They have in a year, in their worst economical year, they have spent their money on the goal of annihilating Israel and of creating a larger weapon against the West. Now, when we went on this operation, there were three things we wanted to achieve in the beginning so we would have freedom of operations as we have now. One was the elimination of Ali Khamenei so we could, as we call military terms, cut the head of the snake and make sure that they have a hard time conducting this massive force that they have.

The second thing was creating freedom of operation for us and the Americans alike. We've been able to dismantle over 80% of their aerial defense systems and the radars so we can have aerial security and operate over Iranian skies. The second thing is limiting their offensive capabilities. What we did and what we understand and we saw in the first few days, the Iranian regime was firing all over the region, targeting civilians, firing towards 12 countries, as I said before. And what we wanted to achieve is we wanted to make sure that we are limiting their offensive capabilities.

We went after their missile launchers. We were able to neutralize more than more than 2/3 of their missile launchers and create a bottleneck that even if they have hundreds of missiles, they don't have the launchers to fire. And us and the Americans have been working nonstop 247 for the last 13 days to suppress their fire that they've been firing towards Israel, United States assets, but all the countries in the region and we've seen some success in that. And the fact that the fire towards other countries in the region and Israel has has been diminishing is because of Israeli American operation and Israeli American operation. Only now after we were able to finish the first stage of the operation where we were able to establish aerial superiority and we were able to diminish their firepower towards countries in the region, we set to make sure we achieve our goals of making a real change long term.

We went after Nuclear sites, we're still going on. We've been nonstop operating in Iranian skies. Nuclear sites, production sites is one of the most important things. Making sure that they're not able to reproduce ballistic missiles like they did after the 12 day war in June. Making sure that they don't have those capabilities.

Making sure we're going after their command and control centers, their airspace, their intelligence. Making sure that we are creating a change that will be very significant long term and will change the region for better, will reduce the threat to the better. We've been operating non stop. And when this operation began, the Iranian regime urged, pushed Hezbollah to join the war alongside them to join a war against Israel. We saw this in our intelligence and we also, we saw the results on the ground.

This Iranian regime pushed Hezbollah to fight Israel until Hezbollah joined the war against Israel. Now Hezbollah says they are the defender of Lebanon. In reality, the way they are operating in the last 12 days, Hezbollah is the defender of the Iranian regime and they have chosen the Iranian money and the Iranian interest, this Iranian terror regime interest over the interest of the people of Lebanon. Because Israel does not have a war with Lebanon. We do not have a war with the people of Lebanon, quite frankly.

We have an operation against Iran and we were focusing on that and focusing on that only. And we are now operating in another arena because this was a decision made by Kis Iran, their Iranian regime is holding captive their own people. The Iranian regime is also holding captive Lebanon. Using Kisala, their proxy to hold them captive. And this and Kisala and the Iranian proxy is not just an Israeli problem, it is a Lebanese problem.

It's a problem the entire region. And after our operations against HEZBOLLAH Back in 2024, the world agreed. The world agreed a deal brokered mainly by the US and France, but other nations were also involved to help make the ceasefire happen. The world agreed that a better future in the region between Israel and Lebanon begins with no Hezbollah. The world agreed upon that.

And that was something that was also agreed upon in 2006. No Hezbollah in southern Lebanon only also agreed upon in 2004, also agreed upon it and even all the way back to 2000. And what we've seen in the last 12 days, when Kisbala joined this, joined Iran in this war against Israel on March 1st was their decision. Israel was only focusing on Iran. They decided to drag down the region and they fired over a thousand rockets and UAVs and missiles towards Israel since March 1st.

I repeat that, over a thousand rockets, UAVs and missiles towards Israel. Since March 1st, they have decided to join a war alongside Iran against Israel. And they decided to drag down the region once again. And we knew this was an option. What Hezbollah did, we prepared for it and we operated against them.

Now the main thing that, the main thing that we did, obviously we, we operated with our aircraft against Hezbollah targets to remove the threat. But the main, the main thing we did is we took the borderline, the border area to protect Israeli civilians. What happened after October 7, 2023, after Hamas's brutal massacre? Hezbollah, the same as they did now joined the war, stood on those hilltops and those hilltops are overlooking, if you've ever been to northern Israel, the positions in northern Israel are overlooking the, the Israeli communities. More than 90% of the border, the Lebanese side is overlooking Israeli communities.

They stood there, they fired RPG or anti tank missiles to our civilians. And Israel had to evacuate an entire region of our country to defend our civilians from this terrorist threat. And we had to go on a wider war because Hezbollah was standing on our border and firing anti tank missiles and RPG towards our civilians. Now we have great aerial defense systems, but an anti tank missile can hit a family within 10 seconds. There's no sirens, there's no red alert, there's no interception.

And if they are holding those vantage points, they are able to fire through a window and blow up an entire family. That's what they did. After October 7th, we had to evacuate an entire northern Israel for more than a year. We had to have a wide war to push Hezbollah back again, even though they were not supposed to be there at the first place, according, according to old international agreement and according to what UNIFIL was supposed to be able to achieve, which they hadn't, sadly. So right now we're holding the positions in southern Lebanon.

We have deep prepared with aerial defense and we're targeting Kisbala. But in the same time we did something very specific. We gave warnings to all the specific places Kisbala was to the civilians so they can get out of harm's way to make sure again we're fighting Hezbollah, we're not fighting the people of Lebanon. We have no war with the people of Lebanon. So we gave out warnings, we gave up the element of surprise and did our best to make sure that we are not targeting the civilians.

On the contrary, we are doing everything we can to make sure those civilians are out of the line of fire. Yesterday Hezbollah said that they're expanding their operation, that they're calling on a war against Israel. They fired within one hour, over 100 rockets and UAVs towards Israel. Over the span of the night, over 220 rockets and UAVs. Just yesterday, the 12 hours between 8:00pm and 8:00am they fired over 220 rockets and UAV's towards Israel.

They have also, sadly, we've had two casualties, two soldiers that were killed on the border area protecting Israeli civilians. And that exactly proves that Kitbara is in southern Lebanon attempting to reach the border. Since March 1, Hezbollah has deployed hundreds of terrorists down and tried to move them south and south. And our soldiers are there protecting Israeli civilians, holding the lines, making sure that we're pushing them back and they can't reach our civilians as they do. And we know that Hezbollah looks at this thing that they were able after, after October 7th to remove an entire region of Israel that we had to evacuate.

They looked at that as great success because they were able to terrorize our civilians, to intimidate them. And they're attempting to do it now. But we're, we're standing strongly on the defense line and protecting Israeli civilians. And it is very, very clear from the last 12 days, Hezbollah is operating primarily according to the Iranian terrorist regime interests. Hezbollah is not the defender of Lebanon.

Hezbollah is the main problem or the only problem. Even on the border between Israel and Lebanon. There's a real possibility, we've seen it in the last year and a half for a better future between two countries. But it has to be without kisbala. And the world has agreed upon it already and we have to see it happen.

And the last thing is we see an Iranian regime, we're fighting in Iran, we're fighting their extension on our northern border. This is a regime that is conducting war crimes, targeting civilians, purposely trying to terrorize civilians, purposely firing towards center of mass populations. Most of their fire of the Iranian regime is centered towards the center of mass population. And they are using cluster munitions probably you've seen the videos of those missiles. It looks like a rain of rockets.

That's what the Iranian regime is firing towards Israeli civilians in an attempt. And this thing is inactive if it's trying to penetrate a bunker or a base. It is effective when you're trying to have bombs all over a 10 kilometer radius so you can kill as many civilians as possible. And just this week it killed two civilians in central Israel. And this is the Iranian regime that we are facing.

So this is, this is where we've, we've been in the last 13 days. Our aircraft are operating nonstop over Iranian skies. Our aircrafts are operating in Lebanon to Remove threats. Last night when I told you about the 220 rockets and UAVs they fired, that was only a third of what they wanted to achieve. We were able to prepare.

We were able in real time when they were firing the rockets to find them. And we were able to eliminate more than 50% of the launchers that were used last night. And we were able to prevent a much larger attack. They wanted to fire many more rockets and UAVs towards Israel. So Hezbollah remains a real threat.

They are funded and backed by the Iranian regime. The Iranian regime is an extreme regime with an extreme ideology that wants to annihilate us. They speak about it publicly. We have no war with the people of Iran and no war with the people of Lebanon. If I can finish before I answer questions with a personal note.

Part of my family came from Iran to Israel 130 years ago. And I was raised on the idea that Jews and Israel used to have great relations with the great country of Iran. We have no war with the people of Iran. We have to defend ourselves against a regime that said that if they can, they will annihilate us. We have a responsibility as a military that when an enemy says they will annihilate you, when they get the means to do that, where they're preparing to do that, where they have fired hundreds of ballistic missiles towards us unprovoked in 2024, when they have funded and backed terrorist groups with the sole purpose of killing us and killing civilians, and we saw what Hamas did on October 7, we have to act to defend ourselves.

We have a responsibility as a military to our civilians to remove a threat before it becomes too late, before it becomes too big. And we're fighting and hoping for better future in the region. And I believe this Iranian regime capabilities are reduced, our region will be a safer and better place.

And I'd be happy to take questions if there's any questions. I can keep talking for a long time, but I also want to hear if there's anything that the audience would like to ask or clarifications or any type of question.

Lt. Col. Adapt Shoshani for the briefing and I will open it for questions. Just if you can, when you present the question, either you send it to the lieutenant colonel or I will answer it, or both of us, it depends.

So please, if anyone has any questions, Please.

Yeah. My name is Jess Brumner, deputy military advisor for Denmark. And first of all, let me start by saying that Denmark fully recognizes Israel's right to self defense, including against Hezbollah. And on the fight with Hezbollah, it was mentioned a couple of times that your fight is indeed not against Lebanon, not against the Lebanese people, but against Hezbollah. Lebanon has made Hezbollah illegal, so it seems, and is trying to rid his bottle of arms.

It seems you have a common cause in this case.

My question is to which degree you are coordinating with the Lebanese authorities before striking within Lebanese territory.

I mean, every time you strike in a populous area like, say, Beirut, there is a risk of collateral damage. Right. And one would think that Lebanese authorities could potentially minimize this or help target only those Hezbollah entities that would need to be struck. So grateful if you can clarify to which degree you are cooperating with the Lebanese authorities. Thank you.

I will start, Nadav, and you will follow me. Complete my answer. But first I will say the huge gap between the statements of the Lebanese leaders and their actions. They say the right things, and we welcome that, but they don't give the right orders to the military. The Lebanese military is not deployed and is not confronting Hezbollah.

The second thing, the world's coordination before the, the operation started because there is a mechanism that we report violations and the Lebanese army come and actually check the locations. But what we saw that even when they came and saw the Hezbollah presence, they took pictures, but there was no action. They were afraid to actually confront Hezbollah. And I think that is the core of the problem, that there is no confrontation because they don't want to, don't have the ability. But they see Hezbollah bankers, they see launchers, and they don't take action.

And the last point, you know, Nadavre mentioned it, we give evacuation notices to the population. If you can go, Dalia, to the Lebanon, we actually send text messages to people and you tell them, you know, move from this area, it's not going to be safe. And we saw, you know, a lot of refugees, unfortunately had to, to move north to the, to Beirut, and they didn't stay in this area. That's unfortunate. But we are trying to minimize the areas where the population is.

You want to continue?

Yeah, I, I think, I think you hit the points. There's. There's two things to say. One, as the ambassador said, there was a mechanism before Kis chose to break the ceasefire.

Right now we're currently, at least on the military level, I can speak of, there's deconfliction because we are not targeting the Lebanese armed forces, not at all. We're targeting kisa. And when it comes to strikes in densely populated areas, we, we're operating Hezbollah has focal points. It's southern Lebanon where we Urge the civilians to get out. Because Kisbala is operating from within civilian villages.

And the Dahya is their second main place. It's a neighborhood in southern Beirut which is their headquarters. Nasrala was hiding there underground. They've, they've in the past they've been hiding and also now they're hiding their strategic weapons underground. So we've told that specific neighborhood to go as well.

And as the ambassador said, it's not just text messages. It's on social media, it's announcements on the radio, text messages. And we even have people. It's not bots. We have soldiers and the idf.

Their job is to call civilians in Lebanon and tell them, listen, Kisala is next to you. We have to fight them. Please get out. And we have people within the army. Their job is to understand did people move or not.

And then if they didn't move, then we have to calculate our actions a specific way. And if they did move, we know how we can operate against these terrorists. But Hezbollah is hiding behind civilians. We have to operate against this Hezbollah and we're doing everything we can to make sure we're not targeting the Lebanese armed forces, not targeting civilians.

I have a question.

I can't hear. If you could speak louder.

My name Nguyen Mila from Vietnam. Permanent missions. Thank you ambassador for your briefings and I have very source question for you today. Yeah, in your briefings you said that you have a three goal military operations on Iran. And we just saw that yesterday evening Iran have launched more than 200 missile and UAV on Israel.

So it seems that Iran missile stockpile right now have a lot. So in the opinions we when you missions on Iran, I mean that when you fulfill your military operation on Iran. Because in the media President Trump also said that military operation on Iran may be finished on three or four week and this last about two weeks already. Thank you so much. First, regarding the missiles, I spoke about rockets flying from Lebanon last night.

The 150 to 200 rockets from Iran, the numbers decreased dramatically by 90% since the first day to today. So I think with Iran we saw it, but now Hezbollah decided to join and to escalate. And they have capabilities, they have a lot of rockets. So I think we will see the same with Hezbollah. Once we will retaliate and we will attack their bunkers and launchers.

We will degrade their capabilities. But it will be painful. It will be painful. We hope that we don't have to use all of our might, but we'll do it if we have no other choice regarding the length of the operation. You know, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, they spoke about weeks.

And you're right, we are almost two weeks into that operation. You know, we're moving fast. We achieve a lot of the goals. But, you know, today when we have air superiority and we continue to hammer the, I call it the terror machine of Iran, we should continue with that because we have more targets on our bank of targets.

Please.

Okay. Thank you. Ambassador, my name is Felix Sambakunsi from Malawi Mission. I wish to thank you for this briefing and also appreciate the tactics that you are using in informing the civilian population in Lebanon before you, before an action is taken and bordering on that. This morning I heard on BBC Radio that in Iran soldiers or equipment is being found in civilian places like schools.

It was broadcasted this morning, two hours ago on BBC. I don't know if you are aware about it. And again, what measures could you or are you implementing to prevent the injuries and the suffering of the civilian people in those places? Thank you.

In Israel, in Lebanon or in Tehran. So we take a lot of measures to use precise munition, unlike Iran, we use precise munition for military targets. And whenever we get reports, we check them. But I can tell you that we put a lot of time and efforts in order to make sure we target military targets exactly the opposite from Iran. Please.

Thank you very much, Ambassador, and thank you for the briefing. It's always very important that we have these exchanges. And as you were saying, So I think we have to deploy all the victims that are taking place in this fight with the different aspects. And of course, we have to pay attention to the different types of escalations.

And I was very much struck by the fact that the goals on the fight against Iran are military goals. And we see, of course, what we have to have in mind on the ballistic and the nuclear issue, which is very important, and the regional aspect and the way also Iran acted regionally. But there is also a political goal. I state what I read. So creating the conditions for the Iranian people to control the destiny.

If you can maybe elaborate on that, it would be useful. And I would also like to maybe to ask a point that was raised by the Danish colleague previously to be sure about Lebanon. I heard also there was the fact that there is no fight against the Lebanese people. But I wanted also to see what is your perspective about the consequences, the political consequences in Lebanon that could take place. We have a legitimate government in Lebanon.

And I fully share what you said. There were very important measures that were taken after the ceasefire agreement in December 2024, November 2024. And something that we're supporting, of course, there should be action.

We're working on that. As France. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself from DPR in France as France. We are supporting that, of course, and it's not so easy. But the question is, do you see any political goals in the operations that you're conducting also in Lebanon, or do you see also what are the direct effects and also the effects with everything that could be done so to prevent, of course, any question of the security, the legitimate question of security of Israel towards Hezbollah on the ground, but also the security of the Lebanese people on the ground, put Hezbollah on the side, of course, it's very difficult.

But the security of Lebanon as such, and the stability of Lebanon, because we have to work in this. So any. Anything you want to add on that for your future work at the UN would be very productive. Thanks a lot.

Sovereignty, you have responsibility. So you know, we all respect Lebanon and try to support them, but Lebanon is a sovereign state with a military, with a government. So you have to apply sovereignty over your territory. So if you have a rogue terrorist organization in your country and you cannot control it, you know, don't come and complain after that. So I think we should demand more from the Lebanese government.

They have to take action and apply sovereignty. And we don't have any intention to breach Lebanon's sovereignty. We have no intention to go into Lebanon. We have no desire to attack Lebanon on. But once they don't apply sovereignty and allow Hezbollah to run the show, we see the consequences.

Regarding Iran, you know, we are very careful. We pray for a regime change. I think all of us in this room, the Iranian people deserve better. We all know that we cannot guarantee it. So we are attacking the regime facilities.

We are attacking those people who massacre out the tens of thousands of people on the streets. But at the same time, we cannot guarantee it. And we know from our experience in the Middle east, speaking on behalf of Israel, not the US it's very hard to dictate a result for people. So we believe that we are weakening the regime and we're opening a door for the people of Iran to take action. And I believe they will be able to take action that action.

I know some of you have to attend another meeting. So I want to thank you all for coming. We will continue to inform you and let's hope that we'll have good news in the near future. Thank you.