WarSclerotic

IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot joined senior Israeli officials on Thursday morning in expressing regret for the loss of 15 Russian lives that was caused Monday evening when Syrian air defenses downed a Russian plane while trying to intercept an airstrike launched by Israel.
Israel claimed responsibility for the attack after originally maintaining silence.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces accidentally shot down the Russian military aircraft following a missile strike on the Syrian coastal city of Latakia that was immediately attributed to the Israel Air Force.

“Today, the State of Israel marks 45 years since the outbreak of the (1973) Yom Kippur War—a war that left the IDF with one clear mission: be ready and place the army’s preparedness as a top priority,” Eisenkot said during a ceremony in Holon to inaugurate the “Our IDF” exhibit.

“Its operational and technological strength presented in the exhibit reflects extensive activity in the build up and action of the forces—action that is carried out with great professionalism and discretion to prevent our enemies from having advanced capabilities that threaten the State of Israel,” the military chief continued.

“For this reason, the IDF went into action again this week in the north. Unfortunately, Syrian forces hit a Russian aircraft and we share the sorrow of the families and the Russian army.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday that Syrian forces were to blame for the downing of the Russian military plane, but he offered “all necessary information” to investigate the incident.

A day after the attack, the Russian Defense Ministry denounced what it described as Israel’s “deliberate provocation” and blamed Israel for the subsequent crash, saying the plane was caught in the crossfire as four Israeli strike hit targets in northwestern Syria.

In a bid to calm tensions between Jerusalem and Moscow, an IDF delegation headed by the IAF’s Commander Amikam Norkin departed for the Russian capital to explain what led to the deadly mishap.

According to a statement put out by the IDF, Norkin and his delegation will present pictures to Russian officials showing the circumstances surrounding the incident, along with preliminary conclusions on the ongoing IDF investigation into the matter.

Israel’s ambassador in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry over the incident, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

“The Israeli pilots were using the Russian aircraft as a shield and pushed it into the line of fire of the Syrian defense,” ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

Russia said it would make an “appropriate response” to Israel.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.

“Those threats prompt Israel to act in order to protect its nuclear sites,” Snir stated.

“The sites are constantly upgraded according to the IAEA’s security protocols, with the aim of push off any attack,” he added.

Security Cabinet member and Knesset member Minister Yisrael Katz said in an interview with Ynet Israel is constantly threatened by Iran.

“(Iran’s) regime is attempting to carry out a revolution, to threaten Israel, to threaten Saudi Arabia, and everyone in the region who is not Shi’ite,” he said.

“Obviously, (we are the ones mainly threatened—ed) since we are the powerful country that keeps Iran at bay. We know we have to protect our strategic locations,” Katz elaborated.

“We should pose a threat to Iran and cerate a deterrence against it,” he added.

It is the first time Israel has acknowledged it is reinforcing security around its nuclear reactor in Dimona.

Until now, the IAEA viewed the protection of the nuclear reactor in Dimona as a precaution against pollution rather than protection against military and terror threats.

Meanwhile, Iran has asked the United Nations to condemn Israeli threats against Tehran and to bring Israel’s nuclear program under its supervision, state media reported on Thursday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a visit to a secretive Israeli atomic reactor in late August to warn the country’s enemies that it has the means to destroy them, in what appeared to be a veiled reference to its assumed nuclear arsenal.

“The United Nations’ members should not turn a blind eye to these threats and must take firms actions to eliminate all Israeli nuclear weapons,” Fars news agency quoted Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations Gholamali Khoshrou as saying in letters to the UN secretary general and the Security Council.

Khoshrou asked the United Nations to force Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and bring its nuclear program under supervision of the IAEA, a UN atomic watchdog.

Israel, which is outside the NPT, neither confirms nor denies having the bomb, a decades-old ambiguity policy that it says keeps hostile neighbours in check while avoiding the kind of public provocations that can spark regional arms races.

Israel is trying to lobby world powers to follow the United States in exiting their 2015 deal with Iran that capped the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capabilities in return for lifting of sanctions.

The Israelis deem the agreement insufficient for denying their arch-foe the means to eventually get the bomb—something that Tehran, which is a signatory to the 1970 NPT, denies wanting.

Since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has preached Israel’s destruction. It backs the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Its reinforcement of Damascus during Syria’s civil war is seen by the Netanyahu government as a further Iranian deployment on Israel’s borders.

Israel had obtained, he said, in a “great intelligence achievement,” secrets comprising a giant trove of documents and digital information pertaining to Iran’s clandestine Amad nuclear weapons project whose goal was “creating nuclear weapons”

The evidence, Netanyahu posited, prove “Iran has been hiding for years from the international community” its nuclear weapons development program.

In August 2017, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah marked 11 years to the Second Lebanon War with a speech in which he threatened that “the defeat Israel suffered in 2006, it will suffer again, but it will be a much greater defeat.”

Nasrallah argued that Israel recognized Hezbollah’s strength, “an example of that is the evacuation of the ammonia tank in Haifa. We hope they examine moving the nuclear reactor in Dimona as well, as it is more dangerous and needs to be taken care of.”

During operation Protective Edge, Israel intercepted three rockets that were launched at Dimona.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group boasted on Thursday that the group possesses “highly accurate” missiles despite Israeli attempts to prevent it from acquiring such weapons.Hassan Nasrallah spoke in a televised speech to supporters commemorating Ashoura, one of the most important religious holy days for Shi’ite Muslims.Nasrallah says Israel knows the regional balance of power has changed, and that recent Israeli strikes in Syria to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring those weapons failed because this “has already been achieved.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces accidentally shot down a Russian military aircraft following a missile strike on the Syrian coastal city of Latakia that was immediately attributed to the Israel Air Force. Israel took responsibility for the attack shortly after.

He says Hezbollah now has “highly accurate … missiles” and that, should Israel impose a war on Lebanon, “it will face a fate and a reality it never expected on any day.”

Israel worries Hezbollah has been improving its capabilities and increased its strikes in Syria to prevent weapons shipments to the group from Iran.

“No matter what you do to cut the route, the matter is over and the resistance possesses precision and non-precision rockets and weapons capabilities,” Nasrallah said, addressing Israel in the broadcast speech while claiming that he was not speaking from a bunker.

“They laugh at me and say I am threatening from a bunker. I am obviously not inside a bunker. I am in a specific place and the fact that I am here giving a speech proves that you are trying day and night to kill me and are only failing,” he said.

“The Israelis are angry and worried that their efforts are failing,” Nasrallah said at the opening of his remarks.

“They pinned their hope on what has happened in Syria and Iraq, but these delusions have shattered. They realize that the axis of resistance is stronger than ever. They realize that there are new states that have joined the axis of resistance, countries that were outside the conflict with Israel are today part of it,” he added as he continued his one of many diatribes against Israel.

“Israel is scared of every war. They understand that a war against us will have numerous consequences in the region. Their weak points are exposed and they know about our strength,” he declared.

According to Nasrallah, Israel is well aware of his organization’s stockpile of precision missiles and has no solution.

“In 1973, the war was on the front at a time when people in Tel Aviv would drink coffee and read the papers. Now, everything is different. I say to Israel: be careful. Everything you have done up until this point is finished … Israel understands that war cannot be won with technology. The human element will decide the war,” Nasrallah said.

“In 1982 Israel threatened to occupy Beirut. Who speaks about that today?” Nasrallah asked. “Since 2006 no Israeli has said ‘we will invade Lebanon and get to Beirut’ because such an operation requires ground forces. That cannot be done with an air force. Israel no longer has an army that can occupy land. Therefore, every Israeli threat focuses on the power of fire and not on the human power.”

Hezbollah, backed by Iran, has played a critical role in supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad during Syria’s seven-year-long civil war.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards helped form Hezbollah in the early 1980s to resist Israel’s military presence in southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000. Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief war on Lebanese soil in 2006.

Reuters, Associated Press, Daniel Salami, Yoav Zitun and Itamar Eichner contributed to this report.