Post date: May 19, 2013 11:36:37 AM
Netanyahu says Israel aims to prevent leakage of advanced weapons from Syria to "terror organisations."
JERUSALEM (MAY 19, 2013) (REUTERS) - Israel is "preparing for every scenario", prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday (May 19), referring to the growing instability in Syria at a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Over the weekend, Israel said that advanced weapons supplied by Russia to war-torn Syria could end up in the wrong hands and be used against the Jewish state.A Russian shipment of Yakhont anti-ship missiles to Syria was condemned by theUnited States on Friday (May 17) and Israel is also alarmed by the prospect ofRussia supplying S-300 advanced air defence missile systems to Damascus.
"There is no doubt that the Middle East is experiencing one of its most sensitive periods in decades and at the centre of the instability that is causing the escalation in Syria. We are following closely the developments and changes there, and we are preparing for every scenario," Netanyahu said.
Although Israel has not publicly taken sides in the civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebels trying to topple him, Western and Israeli sources say it has launched air strikes in Syria to destroy weapons it believed were destined for Lebanon's Hezbollah.
"The Israeli government is acting in a responsible, determined and measured manner in order to ensure the paramount interest of the state of Israel, the security of Israel's citizens according to a policy that we have set, to prevent as much as possible the leakage of advanced weapons to Hezbollah and terror organisations. We will act to ensure the security interest of Israel's citizens in the future also," Netanyahu said.
Israel has neither denied nor confirmed reports that it attacked Iranian-supplied missiles stored near Damascus this month that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, an Assad ally which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
The two-year-old civil war in Syria between Assad's forces and rebel fighters has killed at least 80,000 people and driven 1.5 million abroad.