Israel's military has no plans of deliberately prolonging its attacks on Iran as it bared that its next operations against the Islamic Republic are already in place.

Ben Cohen, deputy spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told Manila Bulletin "nobody wants a long war," but stressed that Israel must first remove its existential threat from Iran before stopping its attacks.

"We have a concrete plan that's to take away those military capabilities—not just firing everywhere, but knowing exactly where we're targeting, what we're striking, and how we're striking—to slowly deteriorate...their military capabilities," Cohen said in an interview.

He was talking about destroying Iran's military capabilities that he said pose a threat to Israel and other countries.

"We're going to keep doing that over the coming days," he added.

US President Donald Trump had recently said that Washington and Tel Aviv’s joint attack on Tehran might end “soon” as there was "practically nothing left" for the US to attack in Iran.

But for the Israeli part, Cohen did not give any specific timeline.

"You know, we're lockstep. We're talking every day... I can't speak to a specific timeframe, but I can tell you that we're going to go as long as it takes to get the job done," he said.

On February 28, the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran to remove the existential threat that the regime of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed during the operation, posed to both countries.

His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, took over, and his leadership showed no sign of yielding. Cohen said Israel has yet to achieve its goal.

"War is never easy. I will say, we've made very significant progress over the last week and a half, together with our partners in the United States. And that goal, as I described it earlier, is very clear: it's to take that ticking time bomb and to make sure that it's not there. And the way we're doing that is by taking away military capabilities," Cohen said.

"Now, what we have to do is deepen the deterioration of their military capability. So how are we doing that? We're striking in Tehran almost every day, with command and control capabilities. We're striking weapons, manufactured capabilities that they're using to build up those ballistic missiles. We continue to hunt down those ballistic missile capabilities, whether it be launchers, operatives, so on and so forth," he added.

In June 2025, Israel also attacked Iran during a 12-day war that targeted the latter's nuclear facilities and killed its prominent military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians.

Eight months later, Israel, along with the US, attacked Iran again on Feb. 28 for an operation called the Roaring Lion.

During its first attack, Cohen said, it targeted the main nuclear facilities, where Tehran was enriching its uranium. This time, Cohen said, Israel hit Iran because "we've seen over the last year is they're fortifying and trying to rebuild the infrastructure so that they can build those programs back up."

Cohen said Israel is left with no choice but to sustain its war. He said, "We keep going because we can't allow for a reality like the reality that existed on the sixth of October 2023, where that threat is imminent and posed upon our civilians."

"So we're going to keep operating for as long as it takes to remove that threat to our civilians," he added.