Defense Minister Benny Gantz told Fox News in an interview on Thursday that the IDF is updating plans to strike Iranian nuclear sites and is prepared to act independently.
Israel has identified numerous targets inside Iran that would hurt its ability to develop a nuclear bomb, he said.
"If the world stops them before, it's very much good. But if not, we must stand independently and we must defend ourselves by ourselves," Gantz added in his first sit-down interview with an American outlet.
The Defense Minister also said that the Hezbollah terrorist organization has hundreds of thousands of rockets and shared a classified map of targets with Fox News which shows many of the rockets among civilian areas along the Israeli border.
"This is a target map. Each one of them has been checked legally, operationally, intelligence-wise and we are ready to fight," Gantz added.
Israel is expected to continue striking Iranian-backed groups in Syria that Gantz said help to facilitate weapons transfers to Lebanon.
While the Biden administration has signaled a willingness to return to the Iran nuclear deal, Israeli officials from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Gantz believe the issue of Iranian proxies must be addressed in any future agreement.
"The American policy should be American policy, and Israeli policy should stay Israeli policy," he told Fox News.