Israel will avoid future strikes on Iran's energy sites, says Netanyahu

By Marissa Newman

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said Israel would avoid future attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure, after a pair of strikes on key Middle East gas operations sent energy prices soaring. 

Israeli jets’ bombing of Iran’s South Pars field and associated infrastructure on Wednesday prompted a fresh wave of Iranian strikes against oil and gas works across the region including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, pushing crude and gas prices higher. 

 

The bombing also led to a rare rebuke from President Donald Trump, who is under pressure to end a war that’s nearing the end of its third week. 

 

“Israel acted alone” in the strike, Netanyahu told reporters at a press conference, adding that his country would refrain from further attacks on the site following Trump’s requests. 

 

The Islamic Republic’s retaliatory strikes inflicted “extensive damage” at the world’s largest liquefied natural gas export plant in Qatar — which QatarEnergy said would cost about $20 billion in annual revenue and take as long as five years to repair. Trump, in a social media post late Wednesday, threatened that the US “will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field” if Iran continues attacking Qatar. 

 

“I told him, ‘don’t do that.’ And he won’t do that,” Trump said Thursday at the White House, referring to Netanyahu. “We get along great. It’s coordinated. But on occasion, he’ll do something, and if I don’t like it, then — so we’re not doing that.”

 

Israel is helping the US open the Strait of Hormuz, Netanyahu added without elaborating. He said the US understood its allies should build pipelines heading west to bypass the strategic “chokepoints” after the war ends. 

 

Netanyahu also said Iran was no longer able to enrich uranium or manufacture ballistic missiles after nearly three weeks of war. “We’re wiping out their industrial base in a way that we did not do before,” he said. 

 

The prime minister declined to give a timeline on when the conflict would conclude but suggested its end may be nearing. 

 

“I also see this war ending a lot faster than people think,” Netanyahu added.