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Jerusalem (AFP)
Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett confirmed on Tuesday that the Hebrew state will continue its operations in Syria until Iran “abandons” it, noting that Tehran may face what looks like the Vietnam War after a series of incursions. attributed to the Israeli army on Syrian soil.
“Iran has nothing to do with Syria … and we will not stop before (the Iranians) leave Syria,” Bennett said in an interview with the Israeli television channel “Kan 11”, without explicitly announcing the responsibility. from his country for the raids attributed to the Syrian government media and the observatory. Syrian human rights to Israel.
At least 14 Iranian fighters and Iraqi groups loyal to them were killed in raids that attacked sites Monday night in the Deir Ezzor governorate in eastern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Tuesday.
Since April 21, the Syrian government observatory and media have reported at least six attacks attributed to Israel on Iranian sites or groups close to Iran, including Lebanese Hezbollah, in Syria.
Hezbollah and Iran are aiding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in its war against armed faction fighters and jihadists.
Bennett said Iran had “entered” Syria in the context of the war that has been going on in this country since 2011 and is trying to “focus” on Israeli borders to “threaten” cities like “Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa ”
Vietnam.
“Iran has become a burden. Previously (the Iranians) were a source of strength for the Syrians, they helped Assad against ISIS, but they became a burden,” added the Israeli minister, asking Tehran to focus on manage the crisis caused by the outbreak of the new Corona virus in Iran instead of continuing your “adventure”. Terrorist. “
Bennett, who heads the radical right-wing coalition (right), was appointed defense minister in the fall of 2019, but he may lose this bag in the coming days.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponent in the elections, Benny Gantz, reached an agreement to share power over the next three years.
Gantz, the former chief of staff, said he would take over the defense portfolio for the first 18 months of the next government, before replacing Netanyahu at the helm.
Bennett made it clear that he feared the presence of pro-Iranian forces in southern Syria, especially in the Golan, of which Israel would occupy part.
“Within a year, we can wake up tens of thousands or twenty thousand missiles that threaten us. For them (the Iranians), it will be an adventure and they will be a thousand kilometers from their land (…) but it will be + their Vietnam” somehow, “he said.
– missiles –
Since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of attacks in this country against the Syrian army, as well as against Iranian and Hezbollah fighters.
Israel accuses Iran of developing a precision missile program from Lebanon, which requires the transport of strategic equipment through Syria. Israeli military officials believe that these missiles could cause more damage to Israel than those caused by ordinary missiles.
“There appears to have been an increase (in Israeli operations) in the past two weeks, but this is a continuation of an existing trend,” said Yoram Schweitzer, a researcher at the National Security Research Institute in Tel Aviv.
Schweitzer told AFP on Tuesday that “these operations” escalated “in response to an acceleration” in the activities of Hezbollah and Iran, or “because some believe that with the repercussions (of the epidemic) of the new Corona virus and the crisis economic (in Iran), the time is appropriate to increase “the pressure. “But it may be related to these two factors together.”
© 2020 AFP
