Netanyahu: Israel can live with Al Assad

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel doesn’t object to the stabilisation of President Bashar Al Assad’s regime in Syria, but would defend its borders against any actions by his military, according to Haaretz newspaper.

Netanyahu, who travelled to Russia on Wednesday to meet with President Vladimir Putin, said Israel has not and will not intervene in the Syrian civil war, Haaretz reported.

Pointing to the presence in Syria of Daesh terrorists and fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah, however, Netanyahu said Israel reserved the right to act against threats.

Israel has already carried out numerous strikes against Iranian targets in Syria and arms convoys bound for Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside Al Assad’s forces.

Before leaving Israel, Netanyahu said he would press Putin, whose military intervention in Syria swung the war in Al Assad’s favour, to eject Iranian forces from Syrian territory.

Yesterday, Israel attacked Syrian army posts near the Occupied Golan frontier, but signalled it would not impede President Al Assad’s battle to recover south Syria from rebels.

On Wednesday, Israel shot down an unarmed Syrian drone in the occupied Golan Heights.

Israel captured and occupied the Syrian territory in the 1967 War.

The aircraft was downed by a Patriot missile and crashed 10 kilometres inside Israel south of the Sea of Galilee, Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an army spokesman, said.

The preliminary assessment was that the drone was on an intelligencegathering mission, but it isn’t clear whether it was sent deliberately toward Israel or just strayed.

The military sent four fighter jets and two attack helicopters to determine why it crossed.