By Shyam Bhatia
London. “I gotta get Israel to calm down now,” Donald Trump said as he left the White House on Monday (June 23), moments after announcing a fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
His frustration was unmistakable.
“Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’ve never seen before — the biggest load that we’ve seen,” Trump told reporters at the White House lawns Seemingly angry, he said in the same flow: “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
(This is perhaps the first time that any President of the United States of America or any world leader has used the four-letter word in public.)
But for all the noise, the strikes had already happened. Israeli warplanes had completed a devastating round of attacks on Iranian radar arrays, nuclear infrastructure, and Revolutionary Guard assets across Isfahan, Natanz, and Bandar Abbas. And while Trump’s public rebuke may have grounded follow-up sorties, Israeli war jets actually took a U-turn from a mission underway. Trump was upset at Israel for violating the peace deal he had brokered.
Nonetheless, Israel, which has been threatened with extinction by Iran’s Islamic regime, has made clear: the operation is entering a new phase.
Next Targets: ‘Iran’s Terror Arms’
The next targets are not inside Iran.
They are the arms of its regional influence—Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the remnants of Hamas in Gaza.
Speaking before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared:
“The Houthis will also learn what Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime have learned — and even if it takes time, this lesson will be learned across the entire Middle East.”
This was not bluster. It was policy. As much as Iran says deleting Israel is its policy.
In a televised briefing on June 22, Defence Minister Israel Katz said:
“We will strike the Houthi leadership and infrastructure in Sana’a and Hodeidah, as we did to Hamas and Hezbollah.”
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon added a final, unambiguous warning: “To the Houthis … You will share the same miserable fate [as Hamas and the Assad regime].”
Together, these statements form the clearest signal yet that Israel’s strategic goal is to dismantle the Iranian proxy network, described as Iran’s terror Arms, while the international spotlight remains fixed on the core Iran-Israel theatre.
Trump’s attempt to halt further escalation came only after Israel had delivered what Western intelligence analysts describe as a crippling blow to Iran’s radar and early warning network. And Trump repeated, with insistence: Iran’s nuclear facilities are gone; doesn’t matter what some in the Press report.
Satellite imagery analysed by independent defence experts shows visible damage at Natanz, while power blackouts and digital outages in Kerman and Yazd provinces suggest the simultaneous use of cyber warfare to degrade Iran’s military communications.
Though Tehran has attempted to downplay the effects, internal IRGC reports—leaked to the media —indicate significant disruption to air defence protocols and suspected delays in centrifuge recalibration. Israel reports its aircraft have a complete dominance over the Iranian airspace.
US and Israeli sources estimate that Iran’s nuclear and radar capabilities have been set back by up to 10 years.
With that damage inflicted, Israel is now preparing to shift focus.
Drones and satellite platforms have reportedly increased surveillance over southern Lebanon, the Yemeni coast, and tunnel systems in southern Gaza.
According to one Israeli national security official speaking anonymously to Yedioth Ahronoth: “We’ve hit the head. Now we go for the arms.”
Timing: It Is Deliberate
With Trump still dominating US Republican foreign policy circles and no clear successor lined up, Israeli strategists view this as a narrow window of strategic cover.
“No future US president will offer the same margin of manoeuvre,” said a former Israeli defence official.
“Trump may scold in public, but he understands the logic of deterrence. And the repeated Iranian threats to destroy us. He won’t tie our hands.”
Though the ceasefire remains nominally in place, military planning has moved into a new gear. Israeli forces are reportedly updating targeting matrices for missile stockpiles in southern Lebanon, drone launch sites in western Yemen, and remaining Hamas command shelters in Gaza’s southern corridors.
There is also growing speculation in Jerusalem that limited strikes may resume under the radar, justified as pre-emptive defence against Iranian arms transfers for imminent attacks.
International reactions have remained muted. The Biden administration has not formally criticised Israel since Trump’s comments. European capitals have called for de-escalation but avoided direct condemnation.
Trump may have spoken loudly—but Israel had already acted decisively. And now, as the dust settles over Iranian airbases and enrichment facilities, Israeli leaders are preparing for the next confrontation—with Iran’s network of armed allies stretched from Beirut to Sana’a.
As one Israeli officer put it bluntly: “We’ve bloodied the regime. Now we’re going after its terror arms.”
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