Behind him, rescue workers were seen sifting through the rubble, still searching for missing people.
Israel is now involved in its deadliest and most direct confrontation with Iran, a campaign that was debated for decades.
Israel and the United States have warned that Tehran was advancing towards being able to build a nuclear weapon. Iran has long insisted its nuclear programme is intended for peaceful purposes.
Israelis have been rallying around the flag since the attacks began last week, even if not around Netanyahu himself.
The mass street protests against Netanyahu and his Government - the most hardline in Israel’s history - over their management of the war in Gaza have halted temporarily because of the emergency security situation, which forbids public gatherings, the opening of schools, or the functioning of most non-essential businesses.
Israel’s escalation with Iran came just days after Netanyahu’s coalition seemed to be teetering on the brink of collapse.
On Friday NZT, Netanyahu overcame an attempt to dissolve parliament and bring down his Government after a heated debate re-emerged over the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men into the military draft. Those political issues and others now also appear to be on hold.
Many Israelis, especially in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, launched by Hamas, an Iranian-backed group, agree that Iran should be contained and that it represents a direct threat to Israel.
But they have been split about the form any Israeli action should take and the need for co-ordination with the US, according to opinion polls.
For months, Netanyahu’s critics across the Israeli security establishment said that Israel should decisively act against Iran, especially as Tehran remained exposed after its proxies in the region, in particular Hezbollah in Lebanon, was seriously damaged by Israeli attacks.
They also noted that in recent weeks Iran appeared to be making further moves to advance its nuclear programme.
Last week, a United Nations watchdog found Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years, according to a resolution adopted by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
It estimated that Iran was stockpiling at least 400kg of highly enriched uranium - an amount that could be used for several nuclear weapons.
Israeli assessments separately predicted that Iran had enough enriched uranium for nine nuclear bombs, and, in recent months, had taken steps to weaponise the uranium, which Israeli officials say Iran has not done before.
In a televised statement shortly after Israel began its bombing campaign, Netanyahu said that Iran was months away from having the bomb.
That confluence of factors may have emboldened Netanyahu, who, analysts said, has throughout his career as Prime Minister been known for incremental, rather than broadly strategic approaches to conflict - at least before the war in Gaza.
They noted that the Israeli military has still failed to achieve its two main war aims of destroying Hamas and returning the hostages still held there 20 months into the conflict, and Israelis expect that a prolonged conflict with Iran would be costly.
“Netanyahu is in a better position than when this all started,” said Jonathan Rynhold, the head of the political studies department at Bar-Ilan University. “But it’s not just about tactical wins, but also about strategic and diplomatic wins.”
For the long-serving Israeli Prime Minister, the Iran conflict could provide an opportunity to reshape his legacy, which had been stained by the Hamas surprise attack in October 2023 and his unpopular handling of the protracted Gaza war.
Many Israelis now stand behind Netanyahu’s decision to take the fight to Iran, but over time, they will also ask questions about how the conflict is waged and judge whether he co-ordinated properly with the US or if he created any rifts with Israel’s most important ally, said Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israeli Democracy Institute, a think-tank in Jerusalem.
Others cautioned it’s too early to predict political fallout when military action is still under way.
“We’re in mobilising mode, we have hundreds of ballistic missiles targeted at our population centres, hundreds of our fighter pilots are risking their lives,” Plesner said.
“It’s a potentially watershed, groundbreaking moment in regional and national historical trajectory”, which will likely have “political repercussions not only on Mr Netanyahu, but the entire system”.
For now, Netanyahu’s political opponents are praising the strikes in public messages.
“Israel is saving the world from a nuclear Iran,” Naftali Bennett, former Israeli Prime Minister and Netanyahu’s most serious political rival, posted on X.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid posted on X that he encouraged unity amid the “murderous barrage from Iran”.
In recent weeks, Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Centre for Security and Foreign Affairs, an Israeli think-tank, said he has met senior White House staffers, urging them to consider Israel’s perspective that Iran was intentionally dragging out the nuclear negotiations and stalling for time so it could advance its nuclear programme.
President Donald Trump publicly insisted that the US was preparing for its next round of nuclear talks with an Iranian delegation, which were scheduled for today in Oman but were cancelled.
On June 12, Trump wrote on Truth Social that: “We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue!”, hours before the Israeli strikes began.
But since Israel launched its campaign, he has called the strikes “excellent” and warned that if the US were “attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the US Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before”. Today, he wrote that: “Iran and Israel should make a deal and will make a deal”.
Rynhold said that Netanyahu - and Israel - are waiting to see what it all means.
