News - Middle East: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced as “unworthy” the recent comments by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi, who said any military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would be illegal.

The chief of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Saturday that any military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be “illegal” and “outlawed,” as he was responding to US and Israeli threats to target them.

“I think any attack, any military attack on a nuclear facility is outlaw [sic], is out of the normative structures that we all abide by,” Grossi said at a joint news conference with the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, in Tehran.

The remarks came amid reports that the Biden administration has drawn closer to Israel in recent weeks, conducting large-scale joint military exercises with the regime as talks on the Islamic Republic’s peaceful nuclear program have hit a deadlock.

“Rafael Grossi is a worthy person who made an unworthy remark,” Netanyahu said in a meeting with his extremist cabinet on Sunday.

“Outside what law? Is it permissible for Iran, which openly calls for our destruction, to organize the tools of slaughter for our destruction? Are we forbidden from defending ourselves? We are obviously permitted to do this,” he added. 

Last month, US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said “all options are on the table” against Iran and that “Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with, and we’ve got their back.”