Israel is not seeking an open-ended conflict with Iran and will decide jointly with the United States when to halt the fighting, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed on Tuesday — though he declined to give any timeline for when that might be.
“We will continue until the minute that we and our partners think that is appropriate to stop,” Saar told journalists in Jerusalem, speaking alongside his German counterpart. “We are not looking for an endless war.”
The war, now in its 11th day, has spread across the Middle East. Iranian strikes have hit neighbouring states including the United Arab Emirates, while Israel is simultaneously fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and conducting strikes on Iran.
Saar said Israel’s goal was to “remove, for the long-term, existential threats from Iran to Israel” and described Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei — son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the Israeli military on the first day of the war — as an extremist.
Israel has stated its aim as eliminating Iran’s clerical rule by destroying its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and creating conditions for Iranians to overthrow their government.
“We must not miss this opportunity with partial results,” Saar said, acknowledging that a change of government in Tehran may not occur during the war itself.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, the first senior foreign official to visit Israel publicly since the conflict began, said he was confident both Israel and Washington were open to a diplomatic solution.
However, he said any such agreement would need to cover Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes as well as its backing for regional militias — terms he acknowledged Tehran had so far indicated it was not prepared to accept.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said earlier in Berlin that concern was growing in Europe over the conflict and that no plan to end it appeared to be in place.
(Reuters)
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