"Changing face"

Why Israel is now bombing targets in Syria

Rebels have overthrown the Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad.

(Bild: AFP/LOUAI BESHARA)

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel is in the process of "changing the face of the Middle East" following the fall of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. Since his ouster, his army has massively bombed the country.

Israel is defeating its enemies "step by step" in a "war of existence that was forced upon us", Netanyahu told the press in Jerusalem in the evening. Assad's Syria had been "the most important link in Iran's axis of evil".

It had stirred up hatred towards Israel, attacked it in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and was a "weapons pipeline" from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, he said. The collapse of the Syrian regime was a "direct consequence of the heavy blows" that Israel had dealt to the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Shia militia Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran, said the Israeli Prime Minister.

Israel exploits power vacuum
Iran's "axis of evil" remains active, however. But "we are changing the face of the Middle East", explained Netanyahu. "The state of Israel is establishing itself as a center of power in our region in a way that has not been the case for decades".

The power vacuum is currently being used to bomb military infrastructure. According to activists, Israel has flown more than 300 airstrikes on the neighboring country since the fall of Syrian ruler al-Assad. Almost 310 attacks have been carried out by "Israeli warplanes" since Sunday morning, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced on Tuesday.

Shortly beforehand, journalists from the AFP news agency had reported loud explosions in the capital Damascus.

Important targets targeted
According to the UK-based monitoring center, the Israeli army destroyed "the most important military installations in Syria". Airports, weapons and ammunition depots and military research centers were among those targeted.

The organization draws its information from a network of activists in Syria, and its claims often cannot be independently verified.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar stated on Monday that his country had "attacked strategic weapons systems, including remnants of chemical weapons or long-range guided weapons and missiles, to prevent them from falling into the hands of extremists".