Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims Israel killed Iranian intelligence chief Mohammad Kazemi in an airstrike. He noted that the strikes destroyed the main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

"Minutes ago we also received the chief intelligence officer and his deputy in Tehran," Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News from an undisclosed location in Israel, adding, "Our brave pilots are over the skies of Tehran and we are targeting military sites, nuclear sites."

"We destroyed the main facility in Natanz. This is the main uranium enrichment facility," Netanyahu said.

The statement came two days after the U.N. nuclear watchdog said a key above-ground component at Natanz, where Iran was producing uranium enriched to 60 percent, had been destroyed.

The prime minister claimed Israel had launched air strikes against Iran to prevent a "nuclear holocaust". He said his government had intelligence that Iran was months away from developing an initial nuclear weapon.

"We had to act. It was the twelfth hour and we acted. To save ourselves, but also to protect the world from this regime. The information that we received and shared with the United States was absolutely clear: that they were working on a secret plan to weaponize uranium, that they were progressing very quickly, that they would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months and certainly less than a year," the Israeli prime minister said. 

"This is something we could not accept," he continued. "We will not have a second holocaust, a nuclear holocaust. We already had one, in the last century - the Jewish state will not have a holocaust perpetrated on the Jewish people. That will not happen," he stressed.

Asked if regime change was among his goals in Iran, Netanyahu replied, "It can certainly be a result because the Iranian regime is very weak."

The prime minister said that "80% of the people would throw out these theological thugs."

"They shoot women because their hair is uncovered. They shoot at students. They are just sucking the oxygen out of these brave and gifted people, the Iranian people. The decision to act, to rise up this time, is the decision of the Iranian people," Netanyahu added.

Regarding the Gaza war, the prime minister said he had instructed negotiators to "move forward" with talks to free the hostages held by Hamas.

"I gave instructions to speed up the negotiations because I sense an opportunity. We will accomplish both missions: the destruction of Hamas and the release of the hostages," Netanyahu said.

He said U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Whitkof "has made a proposal to begin a 60-day cease-fire, a cease-fire in which half of these hostages will be released immediately." 

"And I said, yes, we're ready to go. There was some development there. I hope we will be able to do it," the prime minister added. | BGNES