Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah would remain a target for Israel even if fighting with Iran subsides, warning that the militant group continues to pose a direct threat to Israeli communities and accusing Tehran of trying to preserve Hezbollah’s military power through any future ceasefire arrangement.

In an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Netanyahu said Iran wants any potential ceasefire linked to its confrontation with Israel to also halt Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“What Iran would like to do is say, ‘If we achieve a ceasefire here, we want a ceasefire there,’” Netanyahu said. “You know why? Because they want Hezbollah to stay there and continue to torture Lebanon, continue to hold its people hostage.”

Asked whether Israel would accept such a scenario, Netanyahu replied: “No.”

Pressed on whether he would maintain that position even if requested by U.S. President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said the American president understood Israel’s security concerns.

“We want to remove that threat from our communities and our cities,” he said. “They rocket our cities all the time. They rocket our communities. Would you want to live like that?”

Netanyahu suggested that even if the confrontation with Iran were eventually resolved, the conflict with Hezbollah could continue separately.

Asked whether the war against Hezbollah could go on independently of developments with Iran, Netanyahu said: “They should be separate battlefields.”

At the same time, he argued that weakening or potentially toppling Iran’s ruling system would likely trigger the collapse of Tehran’s regional network of allied armed groups.

“If the regime in Iran is truly weakened or possibly toppled, I think that’s the end of Hezbollah, the end of Hamas, probably the end of the Houthis,” he said. “The entire scaffolding of the terrorist proxy network Iran built collapses if the regime in Iran collapses.”

Turning to Iran’s nuclear program, Netanyahu said the conflict with Tehran had achieved “a great deal,” but insisted the campaign was not over because Iran still possesses enriched uranium, active enrichment sites, ballistic missile capabilities, and regional proxy forces.

“There’s still nuclear material — enriched uranium — that has to be taken out of Iran,” he said. “There are still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles they still want to produce.”

Asked how the highly enriched uranium could be removed from Iran, Netanyahu replied bluntly: “You go in and you take it out.”

He declined to discuss possible military methods, including whether Israeli or American special forces could be involved, but said Trump had expressed support for physically removing the material if an agreement were reached.

“What President Trump said to me was, ‘I want to go in there,’” Netanyahu said. “I think it can be done physically. That’s not the problem. If you have an agreement and you go in and take it out, why not? That’s the best way.”

When asked whether the uranium could be removed by force if no agreement were reached, Netanyahu refused to elaborate on military contingencies.

“I’m not going to talk about our military possibilities or plans,” he said.

Netanyahu also declined to provide a timeline for achieving Israel’s objectives regarding Iran’s nuclear program, calling it “a tremendously important mission.”

Addressing reports by The New York Times that he had privately argued to Trump earlier this year that Iran was vulnerable to regime change, Netanyahu denied portraying such an outcome as guaranteed.

“That’s incorrect,” he said. “I never said it was guaranteed.”

He acknowledged that both he and Trump had discussed the risks and uncertainties involved in confronting Iran militarily.

“We both agreed there was uncertainty and risk involved,” Netanyahu said. “There’s danger in taking action, but there’s greater danger in not taking action.”

Netanyahu also pushed back against suggestions that Israel and the United States had fully anticipated the potential risks to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil transit route.

“I don’t claim perfect foresight, and nobody had perfect foresight,” he said. “Neither did the Iranians.”

The Israeli leader said some Arab countries are now showing unprecedented openness toward strengthening ties with Israel, particularly in response to concerns about Iran.

“I now see the possibility of expanding and deepening the agreements we already have into alliances with Arab states of a kind we never even dreamed of,” he said.

Without naming specific countries, Netanyahu said several Arab states had privately expressed interest in closer cooperation with Israel.

“I’m hearing things from Arab countries that I never heard before: ‘Let’s strengthen our alliance with Israel,’ because that deters Iran,” he said.

He added that regional cooperation could expand beyond security into areas such as energy, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies.

Netanyahu also commented briefly on China, saying Beijing had provided Iran with “certain components” related to missile manufacturing, though he declined to elaborate further.

“I didn’t like it,” he said.

On U.S.-Israel relations, Netanyahu said he believes Israel should gradually end its dependence on American military financing, which currently totals $3.8 billion annually.

“I want to reduce the American financial support — the financial component of our military cooperation — to zero,” he said. “I think it’s time we wean ourselves off the remaining military support.”

He said he would like the process to begin immediately and be phased out over the next decade.

Netanyahu also addressed declining public support for Israel in the United States, particularly among younger Americans, attributing much of the shift to social media and what he described as coordinated online manipulation campaigns.

“We have seen the deterioration of support for Israel in the United States almost perfectly correlate with the geometric rise of social media,” he said.

He acknowledged that Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere have resulted in mistakes and civilian casualties but insisted such incidents were not deliberate.

“In war, armies sometimes miss and civilians die,” Netanyahu said. “These are mistakes. They are not deliberate acts.”

The Israeli prime minister argued that Israel has made extraordinary efforts to minimize civilian harm, including sending mass text messages, making phone calls, and distributing leaflets warning civilians before strikes.

Asked about accusations that he personally has an appetite for conflict, Netanyahu rejected the characterization, saying he had long been viewed as one of Israel’s most restrained prime ministers before the October 7 Hamas attack.

“Everything changed on October 7,” he said. “I saw it as an attack by the Iranian axis aimed at annihilating us.”

He said he viewed the war as part of a broader struggle over Israel’s survival and the future balance of power in the Middle East.

“I said on the second day of the war: ‘We are going to change the Middle East,’” Netanyahu said. “They thought they could wipe out the one and only Jewish state. That is not going to happen. Not on my watch.”