At the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu confirmed that the Israel Air Force attacked an Iranian weapons’ storage facility located in Damascus International Airport.

Speaking during the start of the meeting, in the presence of the media, Mr. Netanyahu used the opportunity to bid farewell to IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-General Gadi Eizenkott, who steps down Sunday, January 13, 2019. During those remarks he added, “…We worked with impressive success to block Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria. In this framework, the IDF attacked Iranian and Hezbollah targets hundreds of times.

“We worked together against the manufacture of precision weapons in Lebanon. We worked to dismantle Hezbollah’s tunnels weapon in Lebanon, in Operation Northern Shield. We took action against Hamas tunnels on the Gaza border. We thwarted hundreds of terrorist attacks in Yehuda and Shomron and we carried out very many other actions, open and covert. The IDF has major achievements under your command. We yet have much work to do and we will do it.

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

Mr. Netanyahu’s statements are in line with reports over the weekend from the Syrian state-run news agency, which stated Israeli warplanes fired missiles towards Damascus, which triggered Syria’s missile defense, with the latter intercepting most of the incoming missiles.

In the meantime, Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee member MK (Labor) Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin feels that Mr. Netanyahu in his role as Defense Minister, violated the censor and he should be compelled to explain why he decided to confirm an Israeli strike in the Damascus Airport. Nahmias feels this confirmation harms the policy of ambiguity, and therefore harms Israel’s security.

“It is hard to believe that this is not a severe censorship offense, and there is no doubt that this has crossed every limit of reasonableness, and as the censor is quick to act against MKs if they reveal operational images circulating on the Internet, [such as images of fighting in Gaza], the censor is expected to respond immediately, to warn the defense minister that he is undermining the army’s ability to maneuver, preferring [to advance] his political interest over the security interest [of the nation].

“When Defense Minister Netanyahu explained to us in the committee that there is a need to disclose the folders containing details of Hezbollah’s missiles, it was possible to accept the logic behind the move. But here, in the midst of the crisis with Russia, and in such a short time, it is evident that political pressure is exerting it, not the security interests. We all have good reason to worry”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)