Israeli attacks on targets from Iran confirmed

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel acknowledged Sunday that Israeli forces had attacked Iranian weapons warehouses in Syria, after years of ambiguity over involvement in specific attacks on the country.

“We worked with impressive success to block Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, adding that the Israeli military had struck Iranian and Hezbollah targets “hundreds of times.”

“Just in the last 36 hours, the air force attacked Iranian warehouses with Iranian weapons at the international airport in Damascus,” Netanyahu said. “The accumulation of recent attacks proves that we are determined more than ever to take action against Iran in Syria, just

as we promised.”

The rare admission came hours after the Israeli military announced that it had exposed the sixth and final tunnel under its border with Lebanon, which it says the Iranian-backed organization Hezbollah dug, wrapping up a six-week operation to seal the cross-border tunnels.

By lifting the veil on its campaign to curb Iranian influence in the region, as well as Tehran’s efforts to upgrade the capabilities of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the

Israeli government appeared to be trying to convey confidence that the threats from across its northern frontiers were under control.

The public airing of security achievements came as the departing military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, is ending his four-year term and 40-year army career and as Netanyahu is campaigning for re-election under a cloud of corruption investigations.

Netanyahu also appears to be

demonstrating that Israel will not be deterred from acting in Syria despite Russia having supplied the Syrian military with the sophisticated S-300 ground-toair missile system.

Relations between Israel and Russia frayed after a Russian military plane was shot down over Syria in September, killing 15 Russian service members. The plane was accidentally shot down by Syria in response to an Israeli airstrike, and Russian officials blamed Israel.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO Israeli soldiers near a hole to a tunnel last month that the army says crosses from Lebanon to Israel, near Metula, Israel. The Israel military says it has uncovered the sixth and final Hezbollah attack tunnel from Lebanon. Also, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed strikes on Iranian targets in Syria on Sunday.