"In this brutal summer heat, you don't even have clean, cold water to give your children. Such hypocrisy. Such disdain for the Iranian people. To live like this is not fair to you. It's not fair to your children," Netanyahu attacked the regime.

Video: PM Netanyahu speaks to the Iranians about water / Credit: GPO

Netanyahu, who launched Operation Rising Lion in June to dismantle Iran's nuclear program, contrasted Iran's struggles with Israel's achievements in water management. He proudly declared, "Israel is the #1 recycler of water in the world. We recycle 90% of our waste-water. And we lead the world in desalination." He recalled launching a Telegram channel in Farsi nearly a decade ago to share water management techniques, which attracted 100,000 Iranians almost immediately. This, he said, reflects both Iran's thirst for water and its people's yearning for freedom.

Netanyahu painted a vivid picture of a revitalized Iran, free from tyranny. He invited Iranians to imagine water skiing on the Karaj Dam, strolling along a restored Farahzad river, and seeing lush trees in Niavaran and Darband. He also spoke of reviving Urmia lake, a once-stunning natural wonder in northwest Iran. These visions, he argued, are achievable with Israel's expertise, which would be shared the moment Iran achieves freedom. "The moment your country is free, Israel's top water experts will flood into every Iranian city bringing cutting-edge technology and know-how." He added, "Well, all of this is not a dream. This can be your reality. But instead of making this a reality, your dictators impose tyranny and poverty upon you - just as they impose war on us," Netanyahu lamented. "For 46 years, you have been denied the most basic human rights. The right to express yourselves freely. To write, speak and sing whatever you please."

Netanyahu condemned Iran's regime for prioritizing foreign conflicts over domestic needs. Netanyahu asserted that Tehran's leaders have squandered hundreds of billions of dollars on groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, neglecting hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. He decried the regime's repression, holding up books by Iranian dissidents forced to publish abroad as evidence of stifled voices. "You, the descendants of Cyrus the Great, deserve much more," he said.

In a call to action, Netanyahu urged Iranians to take to the streets, demand justice, and protest tyranny. He assured them of global support, stating, "I stand with you. Israel stands with you. The entire free world stands with you."

"Take to the streets. Demand justice. Demand accountability. Protest tyranny. Build a better future for your families and for all Iranians. Do not let these fanatic mullahs ruin your lives for a minute longer," Netanyahu said.

PM Netanyahu to the people of Iran:
As our founding father, Theodor Herzl, said of the Jewish state, "If you will it, it is no dream"

And I say to you, "if you will it, a free Iran is no dream."
Now is the time for action.
Now is the time to fight for freedom.

Iran Baraye Irani pic.twitter.com/0piWqVO8EJ

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 12, 2025

He further made a prediction that the "cruel, callous, and cowardly" regime in Tehran will not last long, promising a future where Iran's economy thrives, water flows abundantly, and children live joyously. Quoting Theodor Herzl, he concluded, "If you will it, it is no dream," adapting the phrase to inspire Iranians: "Iran Baraye Irani" – Iran for Iranians.

The post Take to the streets: PM vows to help Iranians get water once freed appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

British authorities have uncovered a deeply concerning Iranian terror network operating on UK soil, with at least one suspect who is "very well connected" to Tehran's ruling establishment, according to a bombshell report in the Telegraph that reveals Iran's increasingly brazen attempts to target dissidents abroad.

According to the report, the suspect "has close links to the regime" and belongs to a family with prominent businesses in Iran that maintains close ties with government officials. He was arrested Saturday along with four other suspects, hours before they allegedly planned to attack "a specific site" believed to be connected to Iranian regime opponents.

CTSFO's and SF arresting Iranian terror suspects in Rochdale yesterday. pic.twitter.com/lgZdrxqzYM

— Skipper (@__theskipper__) May 4, 2025

 British police believe the five detainees, all of Iranian origin, were behind a plot that was about to be executed imminently. The arrests took place during several coordinated raids by counterterrorism units with special forces assistance. Police continue to interrogate the suspects and analyze electronic devices seized from them. Police stated the investigation is "in its early stages," but operations continue at various locations across England. The main concern is the possibility of direct involvement by the Iranian regime – a departure from Tehran's previous methods, which typically used criminal elements as intermediaries.

Meanwhile, three additional Iranians were arrested in London in a separate investigation under national security laws, with assessments indicating they also acted on Iran's behalf as part of a global campaign to silence opposition figures. According to the Mirror, the targets of the attacks could be individuals or institutions associated with regime opponents.

Security officials fear there may be additional threats, and on Monday, it was reported that police in the country are conducting a "race against time" to arrest all those involved in the case.

Since early 2022, British security forces have successfully thwarted more than 20 attack attempts attributed to Iran, including plots against the Persian television channel Iran International. Last year, the channel's journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed near his home, and in another case, a man of Chechen origin was convicted of conducting surveillance on the channel's headquarters.

The post Iranian with 'close links to regime' arrested hours before UK attack appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Iranian writer and activist Hosseyn Shanbeh Zaadeh was arrested by the Islamic Republic's security forces after posting a single dot in response to a post by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Islamic Republic arrested a writer and blogger because his dot got more attention than the Supreme Leader's tweet!
After all the condolences for the butcher of Tehran, can you ask where @hosseyn1988 is, please? They don't answer to us!@WhiteHouse @POTUS#حسین_شنبه‌زاده pic.twitter.com/NVJGgiMgMX

— Bita JRB (@BitaJRB) June 5, 2024

The dot received more likes than the original post, sparking a debate on the regime's suppression of dissent and the power of social media. Since the reply post, his account has been suspended.

Iranian writer Hosseyn Shanbezaadeh has reportedly been detained by Islamic Republic forces for-

(you won't believe it)

-commenting on the Supreme Leader's post with a punctuation mark. For a period.

His account has been suspended for no apparent reason as well? @elonmusk @X pic.twitter.com/nkQFKbk4hX

— Nazanin Nour (@NazaninNour) June 5, 2024

The incident also highlighted the treatment of political prisoners and the legacy of President Raisi, known as the 'Butcher of Tehran' for his role in mass executions.

The post Social media standoff: Iranian dissident arrested over punctuation mark appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

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Billed as the first Iranian delegation to Israel since the fall of the shah 42 years earlier, the group was accompanied by four former Trump administration officials, including Ellie Cohanim, former US deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism at the US State Department. Cohanim, who was born in Tehran and escaped with her family shortly after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, called the visit "historic."

Delegation members "know that Hamas, which rained down these rockets on Israel, is an Iranian proxy, and they know that Hezbollah on the Lebanese border is an Iranian proxy," Cohanim told JNS. "They wanted to show the Israeli people, but also the world, that they support Israel in its right to a country and its right to self-defense, and they really just stand against the Iranian regime."

The mission was organized by the Institute for Voices of Liberty, a US-based nonprofit that seeks to "counter the false narratives propagated by the Islamic Republic and its apologists" and act as a voice for the "freedom-seeking people of Iran."

The group's whirlwind tour of Israel included stops at the northern border with Lebanon and Syria and the southern border with Gaza. Delegation members also met with Foreign Ministry officials.

In a Tweet, Sunday, the Foreign Ministry wrote:  "It was an honor to meet these brave individuals."

Israel and Iran enjoyed close relations for 30 years under the Pahlavi regime until Iran's shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was forced into exile, making way for the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose hostility to Israel is a centerpiece of its ideology.

Members of the delegation would like to see ties restored. They spoke of an alliance going back millennia to Cyrus the Great (circa 590–530 BCE), who allowed Jews exiled by the Babylonians to return to the Land of Israel. Delegation members talked of advancing a "Cyrus Accords," a renewed friendship between the Iranian and Israeli peoples along the lines of the Abraham Accords recently signed between Israel and four Muslim states.

Delegation member Ben Tabatabaei, an international business, and political economist was 10 years old when his family fled Tehran in 1984, several years after the revolution. He suggested that the friendship between the Jews and Persians (Iran was known as Persia for millennia) was the natural state of things described the current theocratic regime in Iran as an anomaly.

"The regime in Iran is at war with Persian culture, civilization, and, most importantly, our Persian values," he said.

He warned against the current effort by the US administration to re-enter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear deal the White House under then-US President Donald Trump withdrew from in May 2018.

"This regime is determined to get nuclear weapons. It throws them a huge lifeline because they need to have at least $60 billion" to fund their various supporters to stay in power, he said. "Now they're struggling mightily because they're not able to provide the funds."

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He said it had been his "lifelong dream" to visit Israel and that he could not help comparing hopeful Israeli youth with young people in Iran that have no opportunity to succeed.

Amir Hamidi, another delegation member who serves on the Institute for Voices of Liberty's board of directors, escaped Tehran in 1980. He said his family lost everything; some were even executed. Hamidi became an expert on global terrorism and a high-ranking official in the US Drug Enforcement Administration. He also served as a US Embassy attaché in the United Arab Emirates.

"Drug traffic—that's my expertise," he told JNS. "And the Islamic Republic rules as a mafia network. They deal in drugs, guns, prostitution. They're a cartel-type organization."

"Iran has 15 million drug addicts," noted Hamidi, saying he has seen videos of Iranian children as young as four using opioids. "It's disgusting."

He said Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi only has a sixth-grade education. "He was head of a death squad," he noted, referring to Raisi's role in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 as deputy prosecutor of Tehran. The United States sanctioned Raisi for his role in the executions in 2019.

Hamidi said that when he tweeted about his planned Israel trip he "received an outpouring of support from people inside Iran, people I didn't know, saying, 'Give our regards to Israel,' 'Tell them we love you.'"

One of the most impressive members of the delegation was Ahmad Batebi, who served 10 years in an Iranian prison. He was arrested at the age of 22 for his involvement in anti-regime activities at his university. When he suffered a mini-stroke in prison, he was taken to a hospital, where an Iranian-Kurdish group helped him escape.

His family still lives in Tehran.

Last week a group of exiled Iranian activists visited Israel with a message of peace & to express the friendship between Israel & the Iranian people.

It was an honor to meet these brave individuals.

پیمان دوستی بین دو ملت، قوی‌تر از نفرت پراکنی جمهوری اسلامی است. pic.twitter.com/iMA2HJOESk

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) July 25, 2021

"My sister was a member of Iran's national karate team. She has 52 international medals. She is a champion, but you never hear her name because she's my sister. They count her medals but never say her name," said Batebi.

The Iranian regime is facing many serious threats currently from water shortages in its oil-rich Khuzestan province and severe and drought conditions elsewhere. The country is in economic freefall as a result of gross mismanagement, strong US sanctions put in place by the Trump administration, as well as record-high COVID-19 cases. Protests in Iran have escalated in recent days, spreading to Tehran where demonstrators have called for "death to the dictator."

Asked by JNS if the recent riots that have spread to more than 90 Iranian cities could spell the end of the regime, Batebi said: "Yesterday, we were talking to a soldier on the Golan [Heights]. He said, 'We believe that the revolution is coming soon. I said, 'We're already in revolution right now.'"

The Iranian economy has collapsed, and there's no trust in the government among Iranians. The government's brutality keeps it in power, he said, but "every day, Revolutionary Guard members, police refuse to kill people."

Batebi is a strong supporter of continued sanctions on the Iranian regime. "Those sanctions cut off the Revolutionary Guards' hands from money; it's a legitimate sanction. … And right now, it works," he said.

According to Batebi, "When you talk about the Iranian regime, you don't talk about a government that is representative of the nation. You are talking about a criminal cult with an ideology that says directly: 'We're going to export our revolution to other countries.'"

Referring to US President Joe Biden administration's talks with Iran for a return to the nuclear deal, Batebi said "if you want to repeat that mistake, go back to them [the Islamic Republic's rulers], but don't say afterward that you didn't have any information – that you didn't know."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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