Business World

Israel claims Syria air strike, says hunt for Hezbollah tunnels over

-

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledg­ed on Sunday Israel’s weekend attack on what he called an Iranian arms cache in Syria, and said it had also completed a hunt for crossborde­r tunnels dug by Tehran-allied Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

Long wary of publicity around its operations against Iran-linked targets on its northern front, Israel has lifted the veil in recent days — a sign of confidence in a campaign waged amid occasional tensions with Syria’s big-power backer, Russia.

Mr. Netanyahu may also be playing up his security credential­s as he seeks re-election on April 9. That possibilit­y appeared reinforced by figures he gave on Sunday that went beyond more measured informatio­n previously provided by other officials.

“We have been taking action with impressive success to arrest Iran’s military entrenchme­nt in Syria,” Mr. Netanyahu told his cabinet in televised remarks.

He said this entailed “hundreds” of attacks over the past several years of Syria’s civil war, in which Iran and Hezbollah have backed Damascus against rebels and Islamist insurgents.

Last week, an observer in Mr. Netanyahu’s security cabinet, Tzachi Hanegbi, told a local TV station there had been “more than 220” Israeli operations against Iranian targets in Syria.

Confirming a Friday night sortie in Syria, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel’s air force had “struck Iran’s warehouses, containing Iranian arms, in Damascus internatio­nal airport.”

Syrian state media said at the time of the attack that the damage was limited to a hit on a warehouse at Damascus airport.

Mr. Netanyahu also cited “the successful completion” of an Israeli search-and-dismantle mission against suspected Hezbollah attack tunnels from Lebanon that was launched in December.

The Israeli military said a sixth and final tunnel was found on Saturday, 55 meters (yards) deep and reaching “a few tens of metres” into Israel from 800 meters within Lebanon.

Hezbollah has not commented on the tunnels, the existence of several of which was confirmed by United Nations peacekeepe­rs in Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah last fought a war in 2006. While they have at times traded blows within Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, the Israel-Lebanon border has mostly been quiet.

Citing intelligen­ce assessment­s, Israel’s outgoing armed forces chief, Lieutenant-General Gadi Eizenkot, told a local TV station on Saturday that Hezbollah had planned to use the tunnels to spirit “between 1,000 and 1,500” guerrillas into Israeli border communitie­s for shock attacks in a future war.

Mr. Netanyahu, visiting the northern border later on Sunday, put the number at “between 1,000 and 2,000” Hezbollah fighters.

“Everyone understand­s how that war might have looked, with Hezbollah regiments in the (Israeli region of the) Galilee and an Iranian army opposite the Golan,” he told reporters. —

 ?? REUTERS ?? ISRAELI SOLDIERS lift the cover of an Israeli-dug hole into a cross-border tunnel dug from Lebanon into Israel, as seen on the Israeli side of the border, near the town of Metula, in this Dec. 19, 2018 photo.
REUTERS ISRAELI SOLDIERS lift the cover of an Israeli-dug hole into a cross-border tunnel dug from Lebanon into Israel, as seen on the Israeli side of the border, near the town of Metula, in this Dec. 19, 2018 photo.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Philippines