Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told The Wall Street Journal that Israel cannot heed pressure from US and Ukrainian officials to provide Iron Dome systems to Ukraine due to the fear of Israeli weapons ending up in Iranian hands.

In a comprehensive interview published on Thursday, Netanyahu said that Israel is “concerned with the possibility that systems we would give to Ukraine would fall into Iranian hands and could be reverse engineered and we would find ourselves facing Israelis systems used against Israel.”

“That’s not a theoretical threat,” Netanyahu emphasized. “Western anti-tank systems actually made that journey and we now find them on our borders [being used] by Hezbollah.”

This issue was highlighted earlier this month in a Newsweek report, which quoted a high-ranking IDF official.

According to the IDF commander, US weapons transferred to Ukraine, such as the Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank missile system, are being monitored by paramilitary forces on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war. He said that the Russians are motivated to transfer US-supplied weapons due to the close relationship between Moscow and Tehran, while pro-Ukrainian elements are largely motivated by financial incentives to smuggle arms.

He added that the situation is very dangerous due to two concerns: “One is that they can research capabilities, and then learn how to manufacture them. I’m talking especially about Iran. The other problem is that we are very worried that some of these capabilities are going to fall into Hezbollah and Hamas’ hands.”

Another source, an intelligence agent for a foreign country, told Newsweek that in August, a Russian transport aircraft delivered a cargo shipment to Iran worth $100 million, including the U.S.-made Javelins and United Kingdom-made Next-Generation Light Anti-armor Weapons (NLAWs).

According to the source, who provided satellite imagery to corroborate the information, Russia is supplying weapons to Iran to reverse engineer in exchange for supplying Russia with drones to be used in Ukraine.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)