Washington: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Iran’s Islamic regime identified former US President Donald Trump as a direct threat to its nuclear ambitions and sought to assassinate him.

“They want to kill him. He’s enemy number one,” Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday (local time).

“He’s a decisive leader. He never took the path that others took to try to bargain with them in a way that is weak, giving them basically a pathway to enrich uranium, which means a pathway to the bomb, padding it with billions and billions of dollars,” he said.

“He took up this fake agreement and basically tore it up. He killed Qasem Soleimani. He made it very clear, including now, ‘You cannot have a nuclear weapon, which means you cannot enrich uranium.’ He’s been very forceful, so for them, he’s enemy number one,” Netanyahu added.

The Israeli premier told Fox News he had also been targeted by the Iranian regime, recalling an incident in which a missile struck the bedroom window of his home. He referred to himself as Trump’s “junior partner” in countering Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu stated that Israel was facing an “imminent threat” of nuclear destruction and said the country had no choice but to take aggressive action in what he described as the “12th hour.”

“We were facing an imminent threat, a dual existential threat,” he said.

“One, the threat of Iran rushing to weaponise their enriched uranium to make atomic bombs with a specific and declared intent to destroy us. Second, a rush to increase their ballistic missile arsenal to a capacity of 3,600 weapons a year... Within three years, 10,000 ballistic missiles, each weighing a ton, coming in at Mach 6, right into our cities, as you saw today... and then in 26 years, 20,000 [missiles]. No country can sustain that, and certainly not a country the size of Israel, so we had to act.”

Reiterating his long-standing position, Netanyahu maintained that Israel’s actions were not only in defence of its own population but also in protection of the wider international community.

Iran has since responded with a large-scale ballistic missile assault on Israeli cities. Many of the incoming projectiles were reportedly intercepted.

Speaking to Fox News, Netanyahu said he believes Israel’s military operations have significantly hindered Iran’s nuclear progress, dismissing diplomatic negotiations with the regime as unproductive.

He emphasised that Israel remains ready to take all necessary measures to neutralise the nuclear and missile threat posed by Iran.