Speaking nearly two weeks after the US election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s judgment and policies at major junctions in Israel’s ongoing war against Iran and its proxies.

“The US had reservations and suggested that we not enter Gaza,” said Netanyahu. “It had reservations about entering Gaza City, Khan Younis, and, most critically, strongly opposed entry into Rafah.”

Administration officials had publicly urged Israel to calibrate its Rafah offensive to minimize civilian harm.

“President Biden told me that if we go in, we will be alone,” Netanyahu said in the Knesset plenum. “He also said that he would stop shipments of important weapons to us. And so he did. A few days later, [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken appeared and repeated the same things and I told him — we will fight with our nails.”

The US withheld a single shipment of 2,000-lb bombs, allowing all other weapon transfers to continue.

Netanyahu also criticized US positions after Iran’s drone and missile attacks on Israel: “Again, we were told by our friend that there is no need to respond. And I said that sitting and not reacting is not acceptable, and we responded.”

The prime minister said that the Israeli response last month took out air defense batteries and “inflicted real damage on Iran’s ballistic missile production capability,” as well as targeting its nuclear program.

“It’s not a secret,” Netanyahu added. “There is a specific component in their nuclear program that was hit in this attack,” he said, without identifying the component, but saying that Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon was not blocked.

The prime minister said that Israel’s April strike was narrower, taking out one of four Russian-supplied S-300 surface-to-air missile defense batteries around Tehran, while in October, Israel destroyed the remaining three batteries and caused serious damage to Iran’s ballistic missile production capabilities and its ability to produce solid fuel.

Addressing attempts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon, Netanyahu said that “the important thing is not the piece of paper.”

“In order to ensure security in the north, we have to take systematic action against Hezbollah attacks that could come,” he said. “This is not only our reaction, but our ability to prevent Hezbollah’s ability to build up its power.”

Netanyahu’s address was interrupted repeatedly by opposition lawmakers and by protesters in the gallery who laid out posters with the faces of hostages held in Gaza. Some were ejected by Knesset security.

Netanyahu told the Knesset plenum that he had met with aides and members of security services until 3 a.m. a night earlier to discuss new ways to get hostages home. He said the focus now is on harming Hamas’s ability to rule Gaza — a claim he has made for months.

“I asked the IDF to come up with an orderly plan to eradicate the governmental capacity, which is related to the denial of their ability to distribute humanitarian aid,” he said. “We want to ensure that the humanitarian aid is not looted by Hamas and others.”

As he has done repeatedly in recent weeks, Netanyahu blasted the “countless leaks from the cabinet and the negotiating team.”

“The leaks seriously harm the chance of obtaining a deal for the release of hostages, they delay the release of our hostages,” he said.

While Netanyahu did not refer to the ongoing investigation of the alleged theft of IDF intelligence documents and the suspected leak of one of the documents by his former aide Eli Feldstein — who has been in detention for three weeks — he implied that there is a discriminatory focus in what the law enforcement authorities choose to investigate.

“I have called time after time for the phenomenon [of leaks from the cabinet and negotiating team] to be investigated,” he said. “I asked, how can it be that leaks that cause immense damage to the State of Israel are not investigated? I sent a letter. And yet, as of this moment, nobody has been investigated and nobody has been arrested [for those leaks].”

Responding to Netanyahu’s insistence that he is has “left no stone unturned” in his effort to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid told lawmakers in the Knesset that the prime minister “is not ready to take the smallest political risk to bring 101 hostages home.”

“Do the government ministers, the members of the cabinet, the prime minister, especially the prime minister, believe that they have no more sacred, greater duty than to return abductees home,” Lapid asked in his own address following Netanyahu’s speech.

“What if a reservist is kidnapped tomorrow? Mr. Prime Minister, will you do everything to get him back? Will he return home or will he end up like Hersh and Carmel and Eden and Yotam and Alon,” Lapid asked, naming Israeli hostages who were kidnapped and murdered in captivity.

“The reservists can’t trust you. They look at this government, they look at you Mr. Netanyahu, and they know that there is no one to trust. They are fulfilling their duty, the government is not fulfilling its duty,” Lapid continued, linking the hostage issue to Netanyahu’s support for legislation to enshrine draft exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox while other Israelis fight and die on the battlefield.

“Actions speak louder than words,” he added. “If there’s no hostage deal, then you didn’t make it. If you fired the defense minister to pass an evasion law, then the evasion law is more important to you than security.”

Sam Sokol and agencies contributed to this report.