MUNICH, Feb 18 (Reuters): Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel would act against Iran, not just its allies in the Middle East, if needed, reiterating that Tehran was the world's greatest threat.
Holding a piece of what he said was an Iranian drone after its incursion into Israeli airspace earlier this month, Netanyahu told the Munich Security Conference: "Israel will not allow the regime to put a noose of terror around our neck.
"We will act if necessary not just against Iran's proxies but against Iran itself," he said.
A BBC report adds: Israel's prime minister has launched a stinging attack on Iran, telling a security conference in Munich it is the "greatest threat to our world".
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would "not allow Iran's regime to put a noose of terror around our neck".
In a moment of drama, he brandished what he said was a piece of an Iranian drone shot down in Israeli territory.
Iran's foreign minister later dismissed the speech as "cartoonish" and not worthy of a response.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus, at the conference, says this theatricality was vintage Benjamin Netanyahu, from a prime minister embattled at home with potential corruption charges looming over his head.
The former US Secretary of State John Kerry later insisted that Mr Netanyahu's assertion that Iran would be on its way to a nuclear bomb within a decade was "fundamentally not accurate". In his speech, Mr Netanyahu drew a parallel between the 1938 Munich Agreement, seen as a failed attempt to appease Nazi Germany, and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
He said the deal had only "unleashed a dangerous Iranian tiger", against which "we will act without hesitation to defend ourselves".
Holding up the remnant of drone, of which Iran denies ownership, he addressed Mr Zarif directly: "Do you recognise this? You should, it's yours. You can take back a message to the tyrants of Tehran: Do not test Israel's resolve."
An AFP report adds: Israel arrested six Palestinians suspected of planning attacks targeting Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman and other Israelis in the occupied West Bank, security agency Shin Bet said Sunday.
Meanwhile, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire in Gaza in a flare-up after soldiers were wounded by an explosive device along the Palestinian enclave's border, Gaza medical sources said Sunday.
The fatalities were identified by the Gaza health ministry as Salam Sabah and Abdullah Abu Sheikha, both 17, who were killed during a strike east of Rafah in southern Gaza.
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