NEW DELHI, March 6: Dispelling speculation about India’s prior knowledge of the recent strikes on Iran, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not briefed on the operation during his recent visit to Israel, as the decision to launch the attack was made only afterward.
The US-Israel strike on Iran occurred just two days after Modi concluded his two-day trip to Israel, during which he addressed the Knesset and held bilateral discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Speaking virtually at the Raisina Dialogue 2026, underway in the national capital, Saar said, “We have great relations with Prime Minister Modi and with India and we were able to deepen our ties we have now a great agenda for 2026 on how to strengthen relations with India, which is the largest democracy on earth and also the fastest economy in the world.”
“But we couldn’t brief Prime Minister Modi on this on Thursday because the decision we took was only on Saturday early morning,” he said, adding that the move came after the failure of negotiations between the United States and Iran.
“That happened only after a failure of the negotiations between the US and Iran that took place on the same Thursday. So that’s why it was simply impossible to do during this visit,” he added.
Responding to questions on the widening regional fallout of the ongoing conflict with Iran, the Israeli minister said that Hezbollah had joined the war “against the will and the interest of the people of Lebanon” under instructions from Tehran.
“Hezbollah decided some three days ago to join this war against the will and the interest of the people of Lebanon and the country of Lebanon because clearly they had instructions from Tehran and they are serving Iranian interests and not Lebanese interests.”
He said Hezbollah had since been launching missiles and drones towards Israeli population centres. “They are launching missiles and drones against our population centres, mainly in the northern part of our country and it is clear it is not going to be one-sided,” he said.
Accusing Tehran of escalating tensions across the region, the Israeli Foreign Minister said Iran had also targeted several other countries. “Iran is acting very stupidly, attacking not less than 10 countries, all the Gulf states, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, I think even Turkey this is not sane because this regime is not sane,” he said.
Asked about the possible duration of the conflict, Saar said neither Israel nor the United States had set a fixed timeline for the operation. “I’ve heard President Trump speaking lately. It might be more than that. I don’t think someone gave a time limit, not us and not the United States of America,” he said.
“We are determined to achieve the goals of this operation and we said that we are going in order to remove for the long run, existential threats from Iran,” he added.
On the broader regional implications, the minister said a change in Iran’s leadership could reshape the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. “A change in Iran will change all the region because a lot of things have changed for the worse ever since the Islamic revolution took place at the end of the 70s,” he said.
Responding to a question about the endgame of the operation, he said regime change in Iran would ultimately depend on its citizens. “The regime change will take place and will happen by the people of Iran the endgame will be written by the Iranian people,” he said.
(UNI)
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