US President Donald Trump warned that any Iranian vessels attempting to come close to the US’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will be “immediately ELIMINATED [sic],” in a post to Truth Social on Monday.
The post came as the United States blockade of the Strait was due to begin.
“Iran’s Navy is laying [sic] at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated – 158 ships,” Trump said.
“What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships’ because we did not consider them much of a threat,” he continued.
“Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea [sic],” he warned.
“It is quick and brutal,” he added.
Netanyahu: Israel supports Trump's Hormuz blockade, Vance said no nuclear enrichment for Iran
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his support for Trump’s decision to impose a blockade on Iran – at a government meeting on Monday.
Netanyahu also said that he had spoken with Vice President JD Vance on Sunday while the latter was on his plane, following talks in Islamabad with the Islamic Republic’s delegation. During their conversation, Vance briefed Netanyahu on the progress of the talks and how the negotiations had collapsed.
Vance said that the US could “not tolerate Iran’s blatant violation of the agreement to enter into negotiations,” and that “the agreement was that firing would cease and the Iranians would immediately open the Strait of Hormuz,” according to Netanyahu.
“Iran did not do it. The Americans could not accept that,” Netanyahu said.
Vance also made it clear to Netanyahu that the central issue for the US is the “removal of all enriched material, and ensuring there is no more enrichment in the coming years, and this could be decades – no enrichment inside Iran. This is their focus, and of course, it is important to us as well,” the prime minister said.
Any talk of disconnect between the US and Israel is false, and the truth is the “complete opposite,” Netanyahu said. “We are in constant coordination with the US,” he added.
Netanyahu compares notability of Iranian nuclear facilities to Holocaust camps
Netanyahu also discussed how he met with Holocaust survivors on Sunday, in the build-up to Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“We were hunted, we were slaughtered; only individuals survived. Today, the tables have turned. We are the ones hunting our oppressors. Those who came to destroy us are currently fighting for their survival,” he said.
“The most important thing to remember on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day is this: If we had not acted, if we had not taken our fate into our own hands in the independent State of Israel, with the IDF and our security arms, then the names Isfahan, Natanz, Fordow, and Bushehr, would be remembered like Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Sobibor,” he noted.
Netanyahu also discussed his visit to southern Lebanon on Sunday, including a meeting with the soldiers acting to disarm Hezbollah terrorists and remove the threat posed towards northern Israel.