JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli warplanes final 12 months intercepted Iranian plane headed towards Syria, stopping them from delivering troops meant to help the nation’s embattled president on the time, Bashar Assad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned Sunday.
The remarks in a speech gave a brand new glimpse into Israel’s considering within the last days in energy for Assad, a longtime enemy who was overthrown by insurgents final December.
Chatting with a convention hosted by the Jewish Information Syndicate, a pro-Israel information company, Netanyahu claimed that arch-rival Iran wished to save lots of Assad after watching the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in neighboring Lebanon endure heavy losses in preventing with Israel.
“They needed to rescue Assad,” Netanyahu mentioned, claiming that Iran wished to ship “one or two airborne divisions” to assist the Syrian chief.
“We stopped that. We despatched some F-16s to some Iranian planes that had been making some routes to Damascus,” he mentioned. “They turned again.”
He gave no additional particulars.
In preventing final fall, Israel detonated a whole lot of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies utilized by Hezbollah, days earlier than assassinating the group’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah.
Netanyahu informed the gang that he pushed ahead the pager assaults after Israel discovered that Hezbollah had grown suspicious and despatched a number of the units to Iran for testing.
“I mentioned, ‘We’ll must do it instantly,” he mentioned.
Israel and a weakened Hezbollah reached a ceasefire in November, ending greater than a 12 months of preventing. Israeli forces stay in elements of southern Lebanon.
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