Since February 28, 2026, the State of Israel has been engaged in Operation Roaring Lion — the latest in an ongoing confrontation with the Ayatollah Regime in Iran.
The current operation is being conducted jointly and in full coordination with the United States. Israel’s objective is to permanently remove existential threats coming from Iran, whose regime has never abandoned its strategy of working to annihilate the State of Israel.
As Israel’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, I believe it is important to speak candidly to our friends and partners in this country about why this operation is not a battle of choice, but one of necessity.
For decades, the regime in Tehran has declared openly and repeatedly its commitment to the destruction of my country. This is not rhetoric uttered in isolation. It has been accompanied by relentless action: the pursuit of nuclear weapons capability, the acceleration of long-range ballistic missile production, and the financing, arming, and directing of terrorist proxies across the Middle East.
Even after Operation Rising Lion in June 2025, the regime has not altered its strategy. In recent months, it moved key elements of its nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile production facilities deep underground in an effort to render them immune from neutralization. This deliberate effort to achieve what strategists call “immunity” left Israel facing a stark choice: act now, or confront a far more dangerous and irreversible threat later.
Israel chose action — because inaction would have been far more perilous.
The Iranian regime already possesses missiles capable of reaching across the Middle East, to Europe, and even into the Horn of Africa. Its capabilities continue expand, as it works to reach the United States. Over the past two weeks, we have also seen the regime’s unprovoked attacks on its Arab neighbors. The Iranian missile and drone attacks aimed at their neighbors and at Israel are primarily targeting not military installations, but rather homes, hotels, civilian airports, and energy facilities.
Meanwhile, the regime’s proxies, including Hezbollah, have renewed their launch of missiles and drones at Israeli civilian communities. No sovereign nation can tolerate such aggression against its citizens.
Operation Roaring Lion is designed to neutralize these existential threats: to eliminate the nuclear program, put an end to ballistic missile production, and end the regime’s capacity to wage terror through its regional networks. Israel’s actions are directed at regime assets and military infrastructure — not at the Iranian people.
Indeed, we draw a clear distinction between the Iranian regime and the Iranian people. The regime has squandered Iran’s immense human and natural resources to finance war and repression, devastating its own infrastructure while exporting instability. Just two months ago, within a period of one day, the regime massacred untold thousands of its own people who had come out to the streets to seek liberty.
The Iranian people — heirs to one of the world’s great civilizations — deserve a future free from fear, isolation, and authoritarian brutality. By targeting the regime’s instruments of aggression, Operation Roaring Lion also creates conditions in which Iranians may one day reclaim their freedom.
Some ask whether such operations risk widening conflict. The honest answer is that the greater danger lies in allowing a regime committed to genocide to obtain nuclear weapons and massive ballistic missile capabilities under the protection of hardened underground facilities, and buttressed by a network of terrorist proxies. A nuclear-armed Iran would not merely threaten Israel; it would endanger the entire region and the world. The regime’s missiles are already targeting Middle Eastern states. Without intervention, their reach will only grow.
Israel has no desire for endless war. Our objective is clear and limited: the permanent removal of an existential threat. Far from closing the door to diplomacy, this operation aims to open a pathway toward regional stability. When the principal engine of terror and destabilization is weakened, opportunities for cooperation expand. The promise embodied in frameworks such as the Abraham Accords demonstrates that peace in the Middle East is possible when extremism is confronted and moderate forces are empowered.
It is also very important for me to emphasize that this is not a religious war. In addition to the Iranian people, whom we respect and view as our future partners, we also see that the vast majority of those countries and peoples being attacked and impacted by this terrorist regime are indeed Muslims themselves. Together, we are confronting a threat to regional peace and security.
Operation Roaring Lion is not a campaign of conquest. It is a defensive act by a democratic nation determined to protect its citizens from extermination. History has taught the Jewish people the cost of ignoring declared genocidal intent. When a regime proclaims its objective to destroy us and works methodically to acquire the means to do so, we must take those threats seriously.
Israel remains committed to international law, to minimizing civilian harm, and to restoring stability as swiftly as possible. And we are equally committed to ensuring that the world’s leading state sponsor of terror does not develop the means with which to carry out its agenda of extermination and chaos.
In confronting existential danger, Israel stands firm — not only for its own survival, but for the security and stability of a region that longs for peace.
(Avraham Neguise (PhD) is the Ambassador of the State of Israel to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.)
Contributed by Avraham Neguise (PhD)
