Iran ‘crossed a red line, we responded accordingly,’ Netanyahu says in warning to Assad

Iran “crossed a red line” when it attacked Israel directly from Syria, Netanyahu stated, warning Assad that “whoever hurts us, we will hurt them sevenfold.”

By: World Israel News Staff

In a warning directed especially at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed in a Hebrew-language video message Thursday that the IDF will respond powerfully to any attacks on Israeli territory.

Shortly after midnight Wednesday, IDF defense systems identified approximately 20 rockets that the Iranian Quds forces had launched at IDF forward posts on the Golan Heights. The majority of the rockets missed their mark and fell in Syria territory, while four were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Carried out from Iranian military bases in Syria, it was the first direct Iranian attack on Israel rather than through its proxies.

The assault prompted an extensive Israel Air Force attack on dozens of Iranian targets in Syria. Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said that Israel’s forces struck “nearly all the Iranian infrastructure in Syria.”

In his first comments since the missile attack, Netanyahu, speaking at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, said that “Iran crossed a red line. We responded accordingly. The IDF carried out a very wide-ranging attack against Iranian targets in Syria.

“Thanks to a correct deployment of our forces both offensively and defensively, the Iranian action failed. No rocket landed in Israeli territory and our policy is clear: We will not allow Iran to establish a military presence in Syria,” he stated.

“Yesterday I delivered a clear message to the Assad regime: Our action is directed against Iranian targets in Syria; however, if the Syrian military acts against us, we will act against it. This is exactly what happened yesterday – Syrian military batteries fired surface-to-air missiles against us and, therefore, we attacked them.

“The international community needs to prevent the Iranian Al-Quds force from establishing itself in Syria. We need to unite in order to cut off its spreading tentacles of evil there and everywhere,” the prime minister added.

“I repeat: Whoever hurts us – we will hurt them sevenfold, and whoever is preparing to hurt us – we will act to hit them first. This is what we have done and this is what we will continue to do,” he asserted.