Israel awaiting US green light to ‘return Iran to Stone Age,’ defence minister says

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Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that Israel was “prepared to resume the war against Iran,” adding that his country was awaiting a green light from the United States to return Iran to “the Stone Age.”

“The IDF is ready both defensively and offensively and the targets have been marked,” Katz said in a video statement.

“We are awaiting a green light from the United States, first and foremost to complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty…and additionally to return Iran to the Dark Age and the Stone Age by destroying key energy and electricity facilities and dismantling its national economic infrastructure,” he added.

The opening salvos of the Iran war on 28 February killed the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose son later succeeded him but has yet to appear in public, creating speculation over his condition and if he is even still alive.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz makes statements in Athens, 20 January, 2026

“This time, when the attack resumes, it will be different and lethal, adding devastating blows at the most sensitive points, following the tremendous strikes the Iranian terror regime has already sustained, that will shake and bring down its foundations,” Katz said.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire between the United States and Iran, which came into effect on 8 April, to create space for talks with Tehran.

But no new round of negotiations have been confirmed and the future of the talks hang in the balance and tensions continuing to rise around shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The war has spilled out of Iran and engulfed the region, leaving several thousand people dead, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and continues to destabilise the global economy.

Women walk past a banner depicting the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in northern Tehran, 12 April, 2026

Israel to resume talks with Lebanon

Meanwhile, Israel and Lebanon were set to begin a second session of direct talks in Washington on Thursday to discuss the possibility of extending a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The meeting between Lebanese Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh Moawad and her Israeli counterpart Yechiel Leiter is the second between the two diplomats, days after they held the first such direct talks in three decades.

The US will be represented in the talks by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, State Department Counsellor Michael Needham, Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, according to the State Department.

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said on Wednesday that Hamadeh will put forward an extension of the 10-day ceasefire that went into effect last Friday.

A woman stands by the rubble of a destroyed building in Beirut’s southern suburbs, 20 April, 2026

She will also ask for an end to Israeli home demolitions in villages and towns occupied by Israel, Aoun said in comments released by his office.

Lebanon was drawn into the war on 2 March when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel to avenge the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has called on Lebanon to work with Israel to disarm the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

“We don’t have any serious disagreements with Lebanon. There are a few minor border disputes that can be solved,” Sa’ar said to Israel’s ambassadors and diplomatic corps in which he also described the neighbouring country as a “failed state.”

“The obstacle to peace and normalisation between the countries is one: Hezbollah.”