Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday that the Israeli military has bombed "nearly all" of the Iranian infrastructure sites in Syria in an overnight operation.
Iranian militias in Syria fired 20 rockets at Israeli military posts in the Golan Heights shortly after midnight between Wednesday and Thursday. In response, the Israeli Air Force bombed some 50 Iranian targets in Syria – the most intensive military confrontation between Israel and Iran to date and Israel's biggest strike in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The IDF Spokesperson's Unit said none of the rockets hit Israel. According to Army Radio, 16 projectiles fell on the Syrian side of the border and the other four were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system.
On Thursday, hours after the strikes, Lieberman told an annual security gathering that "if it rains on Israel, it will pour in Iran."
The blistering Israeli assault was by far the most involved Israeli action in neighboring Syria since the civil war broke out there in 2011. Israel has tried to stay on the sidelines but has acknowledged over 100 airstrikes over the past seven years.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered Israel the administration's support, saying, "This just further shows that the Iranian regime cannot be trusted. Israel absolutely has a sovereign right to defend itself and we support them in whatever efforts they have in order to defend themselves."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said Israel has the right to defend itself against Iranian aggression.
Netanyahu, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Wednesday, said he presented Putin with Israel's "obligation and right to defend itself against Iranian aggression, be it from Iran or from Syrian territory.
"The Iranians declare their intentions to attack us," Netanyahu said. "They are trying to transfer forces and deadly weapons there with the explicit goal of attacking Israel as part of their strategy to destroy the State of Israel."
At the conference Thursday, Lieberman said he hoped the latest round of violence with Iran on the Syrian frontier was over.
"I hope we finished this chapter and that everyone got the message," he said. "Unlike the Iranians, we are not trying to expand or establish a new border. Iran is constantly trying to spread and create new fronts, not only against us but also in Yemen, Africa, Lebanon and Iraq. Iran is the only country that represents this radicalism with a willingness to sacrifice its citizens and its future for the sake of extreme theology."
Iran, he continued, "has invested billions in its subversive activity in Syria – namely the funding it gives Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis in Yemen – and this adventure comes at the expense of the citizens who suffer in Iran. We see the young generation asking, 'Why is the reality here so difficult while the regime spends money in Yemen?'"
"Iran is trying to establish a shared border with us, but we will not allow Syria to be turned into an Iranian vanguard against Israel. This is our clear policy and we are working to implement it," Lieberman said.
The defense minister stressed that "the Iranians tried to attack Israel but no missile reached our territory. They [the rockets] either fell in Syria or were intercepted by Iron Dome. No person, home or infrastructure were harmed."
Commenting on a fiery speech by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemning U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal, the defense minister said the Iranian response to the American move proved Trump was right.
Khamenei's speech "against President Trump was very harsh. We saw how they were burning American flags in the Iranian parliament. They are going in a very clear direction and that direction is escalation and conflict, friction and defiance."
"Trump made the right decision," Lieberman asserted. "When you look back at why the Soviet Union collapsed, the main reason was economic. The Iranians too – what you see there is unrest, especially among the younger generation, which is very advanced. This [the U.S.'s] decision poses a dilemma for the regime – survival or continued adventures in the Middle East. This is a very strong message," he said.
"I hope that we will eventually see changes in the Middle East and relations between Iran and the countries of the world," he continued. "We have no conflict with the Iranian people. We are not trying to bring anti-aircraft systems to the Iranian border. It is time for us to cooperate on science, energy and in other areas, and occupy ourselves with developing the technology of the future instead of investing efforts and energy in unnecessary conflicts in the 21st century."
According to Lieberman, "I'm not sure that everyone in Iran agrees with the crazy policy in Syria, and I think some of the Iranian establishment also opposes it. We try to ensure Israel's security. We do not interfere in the Syrian civil war, or with any of our other neighbors, and we hope that one day, they will stop talking about destroying Israel.
"We have to be very careful and focused. We have no interest in an escalation but we have to be ready for every scenario. This is a stubborn enemy that has been trying to hurt us for decades – in South America, Africa and the Middle East."
Turning his attention back to the attempted Iranian strike overnight, Lieberman said, "For the first time, Iran – not its proxies – attacked Israel and tried to undermine our sovereignty. That won't happen. This is a new phase and we have to be careful and not get carried away. I hope that for now, we have concluded the new chapter in our stand against Iranian extremism. We are not interested in an escalation but we will not let anyone harm us or build infrastructure that could be used to attack us in the future.
"This is a new reality. Iran's attempt to deploy anti-aircraft systems near our border and close our skies is unacceptable. We will not allow Iranian anti-aircraft [systems] on our border that would close our skies to Herzliya or Tel Aviv," he said.
Commenting on the fact that Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group, marked a major victory in parliamentary elections in Lebanon Sunday, Lieberman reminded the audience that "Hitler was elected democratically."
"Hezbollah has completed a move to take over Lebanon, meaning that a Lebanese army sniper has become a Hezbollah sniper. There, too – we're not looking to build settlements in Lebanon. All we want is for the border to be calm," he said.
Israel, he warned, "has to be wary of complacency and distractions. This [the overnight operation] was not a sweeping victory. Everything there is limited and everyone wants to keep this confrontation contained in that box."
Concluding his address, Lieberman noted that "We can't act only with force. We also need to employ diplomatic means. The fact that Israel has the power to work with two superpowers – Russia and the United States – is not a small achievement, especially when we don't agree with Russia on Syria."
"Even tonight we discussed military issues with Russia and the U.S. People take that for granted but it's not. Countries that are more important than Israel [in the international arena] don't have the ability to maintain top-level communications with these superpowers. This is an important part of our defense doctrine," Lieberman explained.
"I again caution against complacency. Don't take anything for granted. You can't achieve everything with military moves – they have to be complemented by diplomacy," he said.
