JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A coordinated war by Israel and the United States launched against Iran this weekend marks a new level of cooperation. To help us better understand the goals of the campaign from an Israeli point of view, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, international spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces, is here. Thanks for taking the time to speak with us.
NADAV SHOSHANI: Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
SUMMERS: Let's start with this. What kind of intelligence did Israel have that Iran posed an imminent threat?
SHOSHANI: Well, there's a few things. Iran is working in a few dimensions to create an existential threat to Israel - not just to Israel, but they're working in a few different directions simultaneously. The first one is the ballistic missiles. We saw the images of one ballistic missile yesterday hitting Beit Shemesh, killing nine people and injuring dozens, and they were working. They have - in the beginning of this operation, they had 2,500 missiles and dozens new every month, hundreds every year, and they were hoping to create a stockpile large enough to have a weapon that we cannot handle.
The second thing is their nuclear program. In June, we were able - alongside - again, alongside the U.S. armed force in great coordination, to give a really heavy blow to their nuclear program. But we have recognized lately that they are working to conceal and to make sure that they are blocking and protecting their nuclear sites. So more concerning than actual progress in the nuclear sites is they were trying to create the conditions so when they actually make progress again, it's impossible for anyone to deal with it. And the last thing is the proxies. The main one of them is Hezbollah has just joined the war against Israel this night.
SUMMERS: What made this so urgent to attack right now?
SHOSHANI: Well, as I said, one is the ballistic missile, the production rate that's creating faster and faster amid mounts (ph). And the second thing was the nuclear program - fortifying and concealing it in a dangerous manner that could mean that when someone would want to deal with this in the future, it would be too late.
SUMMERS: OK. I want to ask you about the girls' school that was hit in southern Iran. More than 100 people were killed in a strike on an elementary school, and that's according to Iran state media. This was such a targeted operation. You were able to take out senior leadership in multiple meetings simultaneously. Was this girls' school a deliberate target?
SHOSHANI: So we've examined the reports coming up of that because as you know, we do not target civilians. The U.S. armed force do not target civilians. Once we've seen the reports, we started checking immediately. We are not aware at the moment of any IDF operation in that area. And I would encourage media to take caution when looking into Iranian announcements. This is a regime that just a few weeks ago blocked off internet so they can kill their own people and then lie about it to the world. And again, we have no information of any IDF operation in the area...
SUMMERS: OK.
SHOSHANI: ...But we're looking into...
SUMMERS: What do you know then about who's responsible for that bombing?
SHOSHANI: I don't know who's responsible for the bombing, and I don't have a lot of details confirming it, and I don't know if the media has a lot of details confirming it.
SUMMERS: In addition to Ayatollah Khamenei, the Israeli military says it killed more than 40 other people in leadership positions in these airstrikes, too. To your knowledge, right now, who is in control of the Iranian military?
SHOSHANI: Well, we've been able to eliminate all of the senior chain of command of their security establishment, but there's still a lot of commanders. It's important to understand the Iranian regime is a large regime. They have three different security establishments, security bodies, a lot of soldiers, a lot of commanders in the medium levels. So we've cut off the head of the snake, but there's still people underneath, lower ranks, that are running the show.
SUMMERS: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Trump have both laid out rough plans for Iran. I want to ask you, what is Israel's goal? Will you accept anything less than regime change?
SHOSHANI: Israel's goal is - we have not said that our goal is regime change. Our goal is to remove a threat. There's a gun to our heads. We don't like that. We want to remove that. We want to remove that threat.
SUMMERS: Have you achieved most of your main targets yet, or is Israel looking to expand the campaign?
SHOSHANI: No, I wouldn't say - I would say we had great achievements so far, but we haven't achieved everything we set out to achieve. There's a lot more to go. Our mission is to have a significant change on realities, to make sure that we are able to degrade in an extreme and change reality and not go back to fighting with Iran in a few months from now because we need to again.
SUMMERS: I just want to look forward a little bit here. What is the plan moving forward, and how do you prevent a conflict from growing wider, from expanding across the region?
SHOSHANI: Well, it seems like Iran is causing that by their actions. And in the last 48 hours, they're just attacking all the countries in the region and have attacked 10 countries. Our strikes are targeted on military targets in Iran. That's it. And now we're also carrying out strikes against Hezbollah that joined the war last night and made a big mistake, and we're going to make sure we remove the threat that's called Hezbollah as well, but we're focusing against military targets in Iran. And that's what we're doing.
SUMMERS: We've been speaking with Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, international spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces. Thank you so much for your time.
SHOSHANI: Thank you so much for having me and stay safe. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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