Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel prevented Iran from "carrying out a plan to annihilate us" during a speech at the Jerusalem News Syndicate (JNS) International Policy Summit on Sunday.
"They would have had a nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb to do so," said Netanyahu. "We prevented that from happening."
He said that the IDF had "removed an existential danger" through its actions against Iran over the past year.
"Had we not acted in Operation Rising Lion and then in Operation Roaring Lion, Iran would have had atomic bombs, and let me tell you something. They would have used them," he said. "That's what we prevented."
Netanyahu emphasized the achievements of "the largest airstrike" in Israel's history, conducted in partnership with the United States.
"We destroyed Iran's nuclear infrastructure," said Netanyahu. "We knocked out 20 of their top nuclear scientists; 12 in Rising Lion, another eight in Roaring Lion."
When you take out the scientists, it's very hard to make a nuclear weapon," he added. "We did hundreds of billions in damage to the IRGC; they may not recover."
Netanyahu: We were told 'for years' we couldn't attack Iran
"For years, people told us, you cannot attack the soil of Iran," he stressed. "Yes, you can do Mossad operations, and we did quite a few. I authorized many, but you cannot send our military to Iran, but we changed that. We sent our brave pilots over the skies of Iran, and they took out targets, regime targets, terror targets, missile batteries, and missile pods. sites, and nuclear sites.
"We changed Israel's security doctrine. We initiate, we attack, we surprise, and we attack those enemies that seek our destruction, that seek to kill us; we attack them before they have a chance to do so."
The prime minister described the achievements as having created the conditions for the fall of the Islamic regime and called on the Iranian people to seize the opportunity to "eventually" overthrow the Iranian government.
"We shattered Iran's terror axis," he said. "We took out Sinwar, we took out Haniyeh, we took out Deif, we took out tens of thousands of terrorists, and despite those who said it couldn't be done, we brought back to Israel every single hostage."
Netanyahu called the return of Israeli hostages "an achievement that I think the entire people of Israel and the entire people of the free world should be proud of."
PM discusses beeper operation, Nasrallah assassination
He then turned to achievements against Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the beeper operation and the assassination of former chief Hassan Nasrallah.
"We exploded the beepers, we took out Nasrallah, we decimated Hezbollah's military machine, we prevented the Radwan Force from invading the Galilee, we destroyed over 90 percent of the 150,000 rockets and missiles that Hezbollah amassed against us."
He further discussed the various security zones the IDF had established around Israel's borders amid the conflict.
"We established a security zone in Gaza, we established a security zone in Syria, we established a security zone in Lebanon, and we shall keep it as long as necessary to protect our people," said Netanyahu.
Having arrived at the summit from a visit to his brother Yonatan Netanyahu's memorial, the prime minister discussed the lessons learned from the Entebbe operation, in which Yonatan Netanyahu was killed during the rescue of Israeli hostages in Uganda.
"Entebbe showed that if free people, if they mobilize their courage and muster their strength, they can overcome the worst tyrannies in the world, however threatening, however challenging," Prime Minister Netanyahu said.
Returning to Iran, Netanyahu described the Islamic Republic as the "greatest sponsor of terrorism on the planet."
Netanyahu cited his father, Benzion, who passed away in 2012, as saying: "Iran vows to destroy the Jewish state. The people of Israel are showing the world how a nation should behave in the face of an existential threat. Stare unflinchingly at the danger, calmly consider what needs to be done and what can be done, and be ready to enter the fray at the proper moment."
Regarding Lebanon, Netanyahu vowed that the IDF would remain in the country's South "as long as we need to protect our people."
"No country would be asked to do otherwise," he noted.
Netanyahu accused terrorists of committing a "double crime" through the use of civilians as human shields, emphasizing the IDF's relatively low ratio of civilian deaths in combat.
"We should be commended for it, not condemned," Netanyahu said.
"We don't have a war with Lebanon, we have a war with Hezbollah," he added. "I've devoted my life to protecting the security of the state of Israel, and nothing will change that."
Netanyahu concluded by calling on Jewish people worldwide to "stand up" against rising antisemitism.
I pledge to you that we will also fight this battle of antisemitism around the world, we will fight on the eight front as well, the battle of our delegitimization," he said. "Don't cower, don't be afraid, and fight back."
Huckabee speaks at summit
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee spoke at the summit before Netanyahu, citing the biblical phrase "Thus the world will be blessed."
"Our founding fathers understood this," said Huckabee. "They understood it in such a way that even in our Declaration of Independence, we made it very clear that our rights do not come from the government; they come from God, they come from the Creator.
"And where did they get this idea? They got it right here, in this city, Jerusalem," he added. "They drew it from the uninterrupted history of the Jewish people, which is connected to God and is a light to the world."
Huckabee said that Americans "should thank God for the Jewish people and for the foundations upon which freedom and the sanctity of man were built, because that is what distinguishes our values from the values of totalitarianism and dictatorship."
"I want no part of that," he added. "I love freedom, and the heart, soul, and source of that freedom came right here, in this country."
"Let us never apologize for that,” Huckabee concluded.