Bennett: Israel’s goal is to remove Iran from Syria within 12 months

Drone strike said to kill Hezbollah operative in Syria

Israel has set a goal to remove Iranian forces from Syria within the next 12 months, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett has told The Jerusalem Post. [The full interview appears on page 13.]

“I have placed a goal that within 12 months Iran will leave Syria,” he told the Post during an interview earlier this week ahead of Israel’s third round of elections within a year. “Iran has nothing to look for in Syria. They aren’t neighbors, they have no reason to settle next to Israel, and we will remove Iran from Syria in the near future.”

During his 100 days as defense minister, Bennett has been working to escalate Israel’s steps against Iranian forces in Syria and force Tehran to withdraw its troops from Israel’s northern border.

According to foreign reports, it is not only the increased intensity of the strikes that have increased but the types of targets that have been hit, Bennett said.

“If in the past the majority of the targets were against lone convoys that entered Syria from Iran via Iraq and then

to the Golan Heights or Lebanon, the targets are now completely different,” he said.

Meanwhile, a man was killed on Thursday in an alleged Israeli drone strike as he was driving his car near the village of Hadar in the southern Syrian province of Quneitra.

According to unconfirmed reports, the man was identified as Emad al-Tawil, a Hezbollah operative active in establishing and entrenching a covert force in the Syrian Golan Heights that is designed to act against Israel when given the order.

Iran’s “Golan Project,” headquartered in Damascus and Beirut, has dozens of operatives operating in the Syrian towns of Hadar, Quinetra and Erneh. They collect intelligence on Israel and military movement on the Israeli Golan Heights.

According to the IDF, the Hezbollah members involved in the clandestine project focus on familiarizing themselves with the Syrian Golan Heights and gathering intelligence on Israel and the border area. They are also working to establish intelligence-gathering capabilities against Israel, operating from civilian observation posts and regime military positions near the border.

The IDF believes the next war in the North will not be contained to one front but will include the entire northern border with Lebanon and Syria. It also expects that during the next war Hezbollah will try to bring the fight to the home front by infiltrating Israeli communities to inflict significant civilian and military casualties.

In July, Mashour Zidan, a resident of the Druze village of Hader in the Syrian Golan Heights, was killed after an IED planted in his car exploded as he was driving near the Syrian town of Sasa in southern Syria.

According to media reports, Zidan was responsible for recruiting volunteers from villages near the border with Israel to gather intelligence about IDF movements and hide explosive devices, light weapons, machine guns and antitank missiles in their homes.

Two days before Zidan was assassinated, the Daily Beast reported that several Hezbollah commanders said the majority of deployment has taken place on the Lebanese side of the border. Hezbollah has also bolstered its forces on the Syrian Golan Heights, bordering Israel, the report said.

Israel has remained mum on the attacks but has made clear it will not accept Hezbollah’s growing presence in the Syrian Golan Heights. •