Netanyahu Orders IDF and Mossad to Topple Iran’s Regime

Written By TNT Staff, Posted on October 23, 2026

Featured photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signs the guest book as President Donald Trump looks on at the White House, Feb. 4, 2025. White House photo by Dan Scavino, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it official: the goal is no longer to contain Iran’s regime. It is to end it.

“There is only one way to eliminate this threat once and for all: to topple the regime in Iran. That is my directive to the IDF, the Mossad and the security agencies,” Netanyahu told graduating Israel Defense Forces officers at the Bahad 1 training base in southern Israel on Wednesday, according to ynetnews. His office posted the remarks on X.

“Mojtaba has pulled the pin”

Netanyahu accused Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, of restarting the drive for a bomb. “Mojtaba has pulled the pin, and Iran is once again trying to develop its weapons of death,” he said.

Mojtaba Khamenei took power after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the opening strike of the joint Israeli-American operation on Feb. 28, JNS reported. Netanyahu said Iran had tried to bury its nuclear program “deep beneath a mountain” after Israel’s 2025 Operation Rising Lion, which led to the joint Operation Roaring Lion this year.

“As long as they seek to acquire such a terrible weapon, the State of Israel faces an existential threat, and our duty is to save the nation,” he said.

“Ready to finish the job”

Netanyahu said President Trump shares his view. “My friend President Trump also believes this is the only way,” he said, adding that Trump had told him days earlier: “We are ready to finish the job, but we will do it only with you, the State of Israel.”

That quote comes from Netanyahu. The White House has not published it. Trump himself told reporters Wednesday that something on Iran will “happen fairly soon,” and that “most people seem to think it’s after the election,” JNS reported, citing NewsNation. Trump has said he will not order new strikes before the Nov. 3 midterms, according to VOA.

Some Israeli reports said Trump had blocked a planned Israeli strike ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 election. Netanyahu has denied that, according to JNS.

“We will neutralize the head of the octopus and move to cut off the remaining tentacles. We will eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, speaking at the same ceremony, warned that Iran and its proxies are trying to stage attacks to sway Israel’s election. “If Iran attacks Israel, Iran will burn,” he said.

Israel’s attorney general barred the military from broadcasting the speeches live, citing concerns about election campaigning, ynetnews reported.

Why regime change is the only lasting fix

Two rounds of strikes have set Iran’s nuclear program back. They have not changed the people running it. The regime replaced one Khamenei with another, and by Netanyahu’s account the new one went straight back to work on a bomb.

That is the lesson of the last 18 months. As long as the Islamic Republic survives, every strike buys time, not safety. Its centrifuges can be rebuilt, its scientists replaced, and its program moved deeper underground. What cannot be rebuilt so easily is a regime that has lost power.

Netanyahu is saying out loud what Israel’s experience has shown: the threat is not a single facility. It is the government in Tehran that keeps choosing the bomb, and keeps arming Hamas and Hezbollah. Ending that government is the only outcome that ends the threat.

Iranians have their own stake in this. “In Iran, they hope for Israel’s victory,” Netanyahu said.

TNT Staff