Netanyahu slams Iran, Hamas as Israel marks Holocaust

Netanyahu slams Iran, Hamas as Israel marks Holocaust
by AFP Staff Writers
Jerusalem (AFP) April 23, 2025

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking Wednesday at an annual Holocaust commemoration, said Iran was an existential threat and warned that "the fate of all humanity" was at stake if it acquires nuclear arms.

Netanyahu was speaking at the start of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II, and is observed every year in April or May according to the Jewish calendar. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked on January 27.

"The regime in Iran is a threat to our destiny, to our very existence, and to the fate of all humanity," Netanyahu said in a solemn address at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem.

"This is what will happen if it obtains nuclear weapons. If we lose this battle, the Western nations will be next," Netanyahu said, using the memorial day to deliver a political message.

"Israel will not lose, will not give in, and will not surrender," he said.

Netanyahu's comments come as arch-foes the United States and Iran are engaged in indirect talks over the Iranian nuclear programme.

Western powers and Israel, considered by experts the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, have long accused Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran has always denied the charge, insisting its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed that he would not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. The New York Times reported last week that US President Donald Trump had dissuaded Israel from striking Iran's nuclear sites in the short term.

In his remarks at Yad Vashem, Netanyahu also compared Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war, to the "Nazis, like Hitler".

"They want to kill, to destroy all the Jews," he said.

"They openly declare their intent to destroy the Jewish state, and that will not happen!"

The Israeli military last month resumed its campaign against Hamas in Gaza Strip after a two-month ceasefire.

Earlier on Wednesday, an Israeli government body supporting Holocaust survivors said 120,507 of them were living in Israel, down nearly 10 percent from last year's figure.

In April 2024, the number stood at 133,362 survivors of the Nazi persecution of Jews eight decades ago.

As part of the remembrance day, Israel will observe on Thursday a two-minute silence as sirens wail across the country in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

UN watchdog asks Iran to clarify tunnels but upbeat on deal
Washington (AFP) April 23, 2025 - The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency called Wednesday on Iran to explain tunnels built around a nuclear site but voiced optimism that US-Iran talks would land a deal.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank, released satellite imagery on Wednesday that it said showed a new, deeply buried tunnel alongside an older one around the Natanz site, as well as a new security perimeter.

"I've been raising this issue repeatedly, and I will continue to do so," Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters on a visit to Washington.

Grossi, who visited Tehran last week, said that all countries need to inform the IAEA of intentions for facilities around nuclear sites but that Iran has a stance "unique in the world" that it does not need to inform the agency ahead of time.

"We're asking them, what is this for? They are telling us, it's none of your business," Grossi said.

Grossi said it "cannot be excluded" that the tunnels would store undeclared material but said he did not want to speculate on intentions.

But Grossi also said that Iranian and IAEA experts would meet to follow up on his visit, including on reinstalling cameras on nuclear sites.

"It was agreed that I am sending a technical team to continue our discussions on this very specific kind of things," he said.

"They are going to be meeting in the next few days in Tehran."

- Expectation of new deal -

Iran and the United States have held two rounds of talks since President Donald Trump called for a diplomatic solution to avoid conflict. A new round of technical talks is expected this weekend.

"I think there's a general expectation that this goes well and that the agreement is verified by the IAEA," Grossi said.

He said that was "more or less the sense of what I'm getting when I'm talking to leaders," mentioning specifically Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as hopeful for a US-Iran deal.

Trump in 2018 ripped up an earlier nuclear agreement negotiated under Barack Obama and reimposed sweeping sanctions.

But Trump has voiced hope in his second term for a new accord that would resolve the issue diplomatically, and has discouraged Israel from a military strike on Iran.

Asked about a military option, Grossi said: "I should simply remind that attacks on nuclear facilities is something that could have potentially very, very serious consequences."

- US talks tough -

The Obama deal, known as the JCPOA, allowed Iran to maintain uranium enrichment at 3.67 percent -- far below the level needed for nuclear weapons -- for civilian nuclear usage.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood firm in an interview released Wednesday that there should be no enrichment.

"If Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries in the world have one, and that is they import enriched material," he told the Honestly podcast.

Rubio said the Trump team would not repeat the Obama deal which "gave Iran immediate and full sanctions relief in exchange for enrichment capabilities that at any point could be weaponized in the future."

Obama administration officials counter that the JCPOA worked in constraining Iran's program until Trump walked away and that it is unrealistic to expect Iran to surrender its whole program.

The Trump administration has kept up sanctions despite the diplomacy. On Tuesday, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on an Iranian shipping network and its purported owner.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei responded that the move was in "clear contradiction with the United States' demand for dialogue and negotiation and indicates America's lack of goodwill and seriousness in this regard."