Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference in Jerusalem on Monday evening on the eve of his trial that begins on Tuesday. This is the first press conference Netanyahu has held since September, and he has not answered questions for 99 days.
The press conference came about 24 hours after the fall of Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, after which the IDF captured the Syrian Mount Hermon. "Yesterday something happened, literally. The Assad regime in Syria, a central link in Iran's axis of evil, collapsed. Iran invested billions in Syria. It was a cruel tyrannical regime that trampled on its citizens and massacred them," Netanyahu said at the beginning of his remarks.
He thanked U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019, and emphasized: "The Golan will forever be an inseparable part of Israel." According to him, "the collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the severe blows we have inflicted on Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran."
Netanyahu said that the assassinated Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was "the axis of the axis," noting that he "not only focused the fire against him, he was the axis linking Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. His elimination was a turning point in the collapse of the Iranian axis."
The prime minister said that after the collapse of the Assad regime "we want to see a different Syria. We proved this at the beginning of the civil war when we built a field hospital, which treated thousands of wounded Syrians."
Netanyahu met with reporters amid reports of progress in negotiations for a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. According to a report Monday in the Hamas-affiliated Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the parties have begun to detail the implementation of the hostage and prisoner exchange agreement. "The parties are serious about reaching an agreement," a source described as "reliable" told the Qatari newspaper.
The prime minister visited near the Syrian border on Sunday and referred to the fall of Assad: "This is a historic day in the history of the Middle East. The Assad regime is a central link in Iran's axis of evil. This regime has fallen. This is a direct result of the blows we inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, the main supporters of the Assad regime. This has created a chain reaction throughout the Middle East of all those who want to be free from this oppressive and tyrannical regime."
He said, "This of course creates new, very important opportunities for the State of Israel. But not without risks. We are working first and foremost to protect our border. This area was defined for nearly 50 years as a buffer zone that was agreed upon in 1974, the Separation of Forces Agreement. This agreement collapsed, and the Syrian soldiers abandoned their positions."
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv
On Tuesday, Netanyahu will become the first sitting prime minister to testify in court, almost five years since the dramatic indictment against him was filed. His attempts to postpone and reduce the days of testimony due to the war were rejected by the judges.