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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli official Wednesday criticized improving Syria's air defense, saying the newly-fueled S-300 missile system could be defeated by Israeli stealth fighters and possibly destroyed on the ground.
PHOTO FILE: Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi attends a session of the International Donor Group for Palestine at the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels on January 31, 2018. REUTERS / Francois Lenoir / File Photo
Moscow announced Tuesday it had delivered the S-300, a decision taken after accusing Israel of indirect responsibility for the plane that had shot down a Russian spy plane by Syrian forces while they were firing on Israeli jets last month.
Damascus and its support for the major powers describe the advanced addition to Syria's arsenal as a major deterrent. Israel and Washington both expressed reservations about passing the S-300.
Tzachi Hanegbi, the country's minister of regional cooperation and non-voting member of his security cabinet, asked in an interview whether the acquisition of S-300 by Syria would cut the wings of the Israeli army, said : "Unequivocally, no."
"The operational capabilities of the air force are such that these batteries (S-300) do not actually limit the air force's ability to act," he told the Israeli army radio.
About the F-35 joint fighter jets that Israel started receiving from the United States more than a year ago, Hanegbi said, "You know we have stealthy fighters, the best planes in the world. These batteries are not even able to detect them. "
Reuters reported in 2015 that Israel had been training against an S-300 system provided by Russia in Greece.
Israel claims that its air raids on Syria are necessary to thwart the deployments and transfers of weapons from Iran or Hezbollah guerrillas from Lebanon, allies of Damascus.
Hanegbi said Russia had previously installed its own S-300 in Syria, so the capabilities of the system had long been reflected in Israeli planning. The Syrian army will need "a few months" for its S-300 to be operational, he said.
"We have more than once explained to the Syrians that we would not go back on our commitment to prevent the retrenchment of Iran in Syria," Hanegbi said, adding that a veiled threat to take action against the S-300 on the ground: forced, a few months ago, to destroy the Syrian missile batteries, and hope that they will not challenge us.
Israel announced on September 4 that it had conducted more than 200 air strikes in Syria in the past two years – an average rate of twice a week – with Russia largely ignoring. No such mission has been reported since the fall of the Russian plane on 17 September.
Such a hiatus was a "tactical situation over a week or two" rather than a strategic reassessment by Israel, Hanegbi said.
When asked whether Iran and its allies had taken advantage of this period to step up their activities in Syria, he said he had "no basis for that" in Israeli intelligence assessments.
Written by Dan Williams; Edited by Peter Graff
