11 hours ago
Israel waited until 'last possible moment' to attack Iran, ambassador says
People stand on a rooftop amidst billowing smoke following an overnight Israeli strike in Tehran on June 17, 2025.
Photo:
AFP /Atta Henare
The Israeli Ambassador to New Zealand says Israel will continue its operation against Iran until it feels it's no longer under threat.
It has been five days since the conflict between the two countries escalated after Israel carried out strikes in Iran, which it says were aimed at disrupting
Iran's nuclear infrastructure
. Iran has responded by
launching missiles
at Israel.
Top
Iranian military figures
, security advisers and nuclear scientists have been killed in Israeli's air strikes.
Follow updates with RNZ's blog
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump says US patience is wearing thin but it had no immediate intention to "take out" Iran's leader. However,
CNN reports
he is growing increasingly keen on direct US involvement in the war to support Israel.
Israeli ambassador to New Zealand Alon Roth-Snir said Israel had acted first because it was under "an annihilation threat".
It would keep going until it no longer had this danger hanging over it, he said.
Roth-Snir said Israel believed Iran was building thousands of surface to air missiles and a nuclear facility with the purpose of building a nuclear bomb.
With just months to go until it became a reality, "Israel waited until the last possible moment and this is the last possible moment" of stopping it.
"The end result right now is we are a few months from when Iran will have the first atomic bomb in its hands."
Twenty-five years of diplomacy had not worked, he said.
Iran's ambassador to New Zealand Reza Nazarahari told
Morning Report
on Tuesday the attack by Israel was
a "clear example of military aggression"
.
"Our nuclear site has been attacked and everybody says: 'Yeah, it's okay because they have some concern about that'," Nazarahari said.
He said Iran has not made a nuclear bomb and did not intend to.
Meanwhile, Roth-Snir said Israel was not "going after' civilians with its war.
Instead it was targeting nuclear facilities and ballistic missile sites and those who were making them possible, such as nuclear scientists.
He accused Iran of taking the opposite approach and aiming to kill as many residents as possible.
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