"I am, of course, ready to press the button if necessary," Netanyahu said in the interview aired by Israel’s Channel Two television on Monday.
On Sunday, a new report revealed that a planned Israeli strike against Iran in 2010 was thwarted due to Tel Aviv’s qualms about its own military capabilities as well as top-echelon internal opposition against the measure.
On September 2, Netanyahu called on the international community to set a "clear red line" for Iran to halt its nuclear energy program.
The US and Israel have repeatedly threatened to take military action against Iran in order to force the Islamic Republic to halt its uranium enrichment program, which Washington and Tel Aviv claim includes a military component.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.
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