After air strike, Israeli minister warns against arms shipments to Hezbollah

JERUSALEM: A senior Israeli minister yesterday declined to comment on reports that Israeli aircraft had struck a target in Syria the night before but repeated a threat to hit arms shipments to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas.

The air strike targeted a factory south of the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday night and the Syrian army responded by firing a surface-to-air missile at the aircraft, a commander in a military alliance fighting in support of Damascus said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment but Israel’s Channel 10 said the aircraft were not hit and returned safely to base.

“I can’t, of course, relate to reports about the Israel Defence Forces’ attack in Syria, but regardless, Israel’s position is clear: Smuggling arms to Hezbollah is a red line in our eyes,” Intelligence Minister Israel Katz told Army Radio.

The Syrian commander told Reuters that Israeli planes had hit a copper factory in the industrial town of His ya ,35 km south of Ho ms and 112 km north of Damascus.

The commander did not give details of any casualties.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based organisation that reports on the war, said the air strike had targeted a military installation.

“Israel has acted in the past and it will act in the future to prevent arms smuggling to Hezbollah according to intelligence information that we will have,” said Katz, who is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle of ministers.

He said Israel’s ‘red line’ was “against arms smuggling (and) also against Iran’s consolidation in Syria” and that it was “prepared to act to deter against our responses.”

The Israeli air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and its Lebanese ally, the Iran-backed Hezbollah, nearly 100 times in recent years. — Reuters