Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned during a meeting at the headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that if the new Syrian jihadist regime befriends Iran, Israel will take decisive action against it.
“If this regime allows Iran to regain its foothold in Syria—or allows the transfer of Iranian weapons or any other weapons to Hezbollah—or attacks us, we will respond forcefully and we will exact a heavy price from it,” he said.
“What happened to the previous regime will happen to this regime as well,” he warned.
Israel has no intention of interfering in Syria’s internal affairs, the prime minister said, but would take action it deemed necessary for its security.
In this context, he said he had authorized the Israeli Air Force to bomb “strategic military capabilities left by the Syrian army so that they would not fall into the hands of the jihadists.”
Since Sunday’s ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the IAF has conducted 300 strikes in Syria, marking the heaviest air campaign in the country since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The aerial assault is mainly targeting air force bases, including entire squadrons of fighter jets.
It is believed that the Syrian Air Force could be destroyed in its entirety “within a few days,” Ynet reported, which would substantially reduce the threat posed to the Jewish state by the incoming Syrian government.
Netanyahu compared the move to the British bombing of the French Vichy regime’s fleet during World War II to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Nazis.
On Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that any entity threatening Israel’s security would face dire consequences.
Speaking at a naval base in Haifa, Katz revealed that Israeli forces had destroyed Syria’s navy, as part of a broader campaign to neutralize strategic threats that could later pose a danger to Israel.
“The IDF has acted in recent days to attack and destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel,” Katz stated, cautioning rebels that “whoever follows [ousted president Bashar] al-Assad’s footsteps will end up like Assad did.” He emphasized Israel’s resolve to prevent any “extremist Islamic terror entity” from operating against Israel.
Katz also announced the establishment of a temporary demilitarized zone beyond the buffer zone Israel has taken over in the border area. This “sterile defensive zone” in southern Syria aims to eliminate potential terrorist threats to Israel.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told the Associated Press Israel had struck “strategic weapons systems” in Syria, “like for example remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists.” Israel’s only interest in doing so, he added, was “the security of Israel and its citizens.”
Netanyahu on Tuesday also extended an olive branch, echoing comments he made during a press conference the previous night when he spoke of maintaining “good neighborliness” between the countries. “We want relations with the new regime in Syria,” he said.
Until now, Netanyahu has celebrated the collapse of the Assad regime, declaring on Monday that “a new chapter opened—a dramatic chapter—in the history of the Middle East. The Assad regime in Syria, a central link in Iran’s axis of evil, has collapsed after 54 years.”
He credited Israel for the regime’s collapse, calling it a “direct result” of the “heavy blows” Israel inflicted on Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
Israel is systematically dismantling Iran’s axis of evil, he said, referring to the Islamic Republic’s attempt via its proxies to build a “path of terror from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea: from Iran to Iraq, from Iraq to Syria, and from Syria to Lebanon.”
