Yedioth Aharonoth’s military correspondent Yossi Yehoshua on Sunday shared his realization that since September 17, roughly the time Israel and Lebanon renewed their negotiations over their maritime border and who gets to exploit which part of existing and potential natural gas deposits thereabout, the Israeli Air Force has ceased its bombing raids on Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria. As you may recall, the summer of 2022 was marked by one or two such attacks practically every week, so, you know, Yehoshua became curious.
That September 17 raid was carried out against the Damascus international airport, killing five soldiers and a great deal of damage. There had been similar attacks on other Syrian airports, including the one in Aleppo, all of them targeting shipments of Iranian weapons and technology to Hezbollah.
במהלך המגעים עם לבנון להסכם הגז, ובצל היחסים המתוחים עם מוסקבה סביב הסיוע לאוקראינה והבחירות בישראל: מאז 17 בספטמבר לא דווח בסוריה על תקיפה ישראלית.
באופן רשמי טוענים גורמים ביטחוניים: אין שינוי בהתנהלות, לא הופעלו לחצים על ישראל pic.twitter.com/rurvjhMSkg— יוסי יהושוע – Yossi Yehoshua (@YehoshuaYosi) October 19, 2022
It stands to reason that those shipments continue and then some. In fact, military experts in Israel have been warning that the Russian-deployed “kamikaze” Iranian drones that are turning the lives of countless Ukrainian civilians into a living hell, will soon be deployed by Hezbollah against Israeli civilians. Moreover, the experience and operational data the Iranians are gaining from the operations against Ukraine will help them improve their attack drones, and Israel must speed up its preparations to meet this new challenge.
Here’s another sobering thought: according to reports, Russia so far has procured 2,400 suicide drones from Iran. This means the Iranians are capable of mass-producing them to the point where they’ll be able to literally carpet-bomb northern Israel, if not further south. This suggests that Iranian planeloads of Shahed-136 killer drones have been landing in Syrian airports all this time – and left unmolested by Israel.
According to Yehoshua, the powers that be in the Lapid-Gantz government denied there was American pressure to leave those shipments alone to secure the signing of the maritime deal. They also denied Russian pressure to stop bombing Syria. And so, regardless of who is pressuring them, Lapid and Gantz are sitting back and allowing Hezbollah to pack its arsenals with killer drones.
The Yehoshua report included one hilarious joke: he suggested there were no more air raids on Syria because those Iranian smuggling efforts have ceased. One must keep one’s sense of humor in these tense times. Here’s a healthy LOL to you, Yossi Yehoshua.
