In a rare statement of admission of IDF strikes on Iranian targets, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi on Wednesday publicly spoke about Israel’s attack on an Iranian weapons convoy on the Syrian-Iraqi border last month.

Speaking at a conference at Reichman University in Herzliya, Kochavi spoke about the IDF’s advanced capabilities and then said: “We could have not been aware of the Syrian convoy on the way to Iraq from Syria several weeks ago. We could have not known what was in it and we could not have known that out of 25 trucks, truck number eight was the one with the weapons.”

Kochavi added that even after they identified the truck, “we needed to send the pilots there and they needed to know how to avoid the surface-to-air missiles. Yes – there are operatives who fired 30 or 40 surface-to-air missiles at them, at the peak there were 70. They needed to carry out the attack and return. In some of the attacks, they also needed to avoid killing those who shouldn’t be killed. These are very advanced capabilities.”

Syrian media shares this video claiming to show the convoy of trucks carrying fuel from Iran to Lebanon, an hour before it was targeted over night on the Iraq-Syria border. Nahr Media says the trucks were accompanied by Lebanese Hezbollah forces. pic.twitter.com/glXLjWoJ0r

— Ariel Oseran (@ariel_oseran) November 9, 2022

According to a Kan News report, Kochavi’s rare disclosure was intended to serve as a warning to the Islamic Republic of Israel’s advanced intelligence capabilities.

Several weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria against a convoy of vehicles suspected of smuggling Iranian weapons after crossing the border from Iraq. At the time, the IDF refused to comment on the report.

The attack happened near Abu Kamal, a border town often used as a transit point for terror groups with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Several vehicles were destroyed and at least 10 people, including an unknown number of Iranian and Iraqi terror group members, were killed. According to an Al Jazeera report, at least 14 were killed.

The UK-based Asharq Al-Aswat newspaper quoted Israeli military sources who admitted that the IDF was behind the attack. The report added that “after Iran suffered severe attacks that led to the destruction of weapons convoys at several Syrian airports, especially at the international airport in Damascus, they returned to transporting equipment via the land route.”

The Israeli sources added: “Iran tried to disguise the means of warfare by using a civilian convoy in the hope that it would escape the eyes of Israeli intelligence.”

The assumption in Israel is that the Syrian regime submitted a request to stop the arms shipments because “the Israeli attacks have damaged most of the Syrian military industries. But Iran insists on continuing to send missile warheads to its industries in Syria and Lebanon, in order to ensure the continued production of the missiles and improve their accuracy.”

After losing the use of the airport in Damascus, Iran reportedly tried shipping weapons to Beirut International Airport on Meraj Airlines, which recently launched a direct route from Tehran to Beirut.

Following the report, Israel warned Lebanon that it could bomb its airport in Beirut if it allows Iran to use it to transfer weapons to Hezbollah.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)