BICOM

Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon yesterday said Russia understands that although Israel has no interest in influencing Syria’s Civil War, it will not hesitate to act in order to protect itself from those seeking to transfer weapons to groups such as Hezbollah.

In light of Russia’s military build-up in Syria, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week travelled to Moscow to meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Netanyahu said that he outlined the danger posed by Iranian and Syrian attempts to supply Hezbollah with advanced weapons. It is thought that Israel has carried out a number of air raids over Syria since the four-year civil war began, in order to prevent such arms transfers. Netanyahu said that he and Putin, alongside their respective chiefs of staff had agreed a mechanism to “avoid any misunderstandings between our forces” in the future.

Over the weekend, stray fire from fighting in Syria struck Israeli territory on the Golan Heights. Israel responded by returning fire at two Syrian army positions. Israel Hayom reported that during his meeting with US President Barack Obama earlier this week in New York, Putin said that he is “concerned” over such Israeli action, but that “We need to respect Israel’s interests.”

Clarifying Israel’s position, Ya’alon told the media yesterday that despite the mechanism agreed last week, Israel “doesn’t coordinate our operations with Russia.” He explained, “We have interests, and when they are threatened we act and we will continue to act, and that was also made clear to the president of Russia.” He explicitly added, “Whoever tries to transfer advanced armaments to terrorist groups, particularly Hezbollah, we’ll strike them, and whoever tries to transfer chemical weapons to terrorist groups, or Hezbollah, we’ll strike them.”

Ya’alon also emphasised that Netanyahu made clear to Putin that, “We are not involved and we don’t have any interest to intervene in the civil war in Syria, but we have to keep our interests.”