NBC News reported Tuesday that U.S. officials are worrying that Israel is preparing for war with Iran, pointing to an Israeli airstrike in Syria Sunday that killed two dozen Iranian soldiers as a sign of escalation.
The airstrike by Israeli F-15 jets slammed Hama after Iran shipped weapons to a base that comprised of the country's 47th Brigade, three U.S. officials told NBC News. The airstrike wounded about three dozen other solders.
"The Iranian forces … or the proxy forces have tried to get down closer to the Israeli border, I mean very close to it, and you've seen Israel take action over that," said U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis who met with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman about Iran's presence in Syria at the Pentagon last week, NBC News noted.
While declining to comment directly on the airstrikes, Lieberman said Israel will respond if it challenged by Iran, the Jerusalem Post reported.
"The State of Israel cannot afford to ignore the threats of Iran, whose senior officials routinely threaten the State of Israel, promise to wipe it out and continue to support terror, and therefore we will do everything we need to do," Lieberman said, per the Jerusalem Post.
"Iran is trying to hurt us and we will respond appropriately. Israel has four problems: Iran, Iran, Iran and hypocrisy."
Sources told NBC News that Russia is running the air war for the Assad regime in Syria during its years-long civil war and Iran is now running the ground war with Iranian military present at every major Russian and Syrian regime base in the country.
CNN reported that Israel sees Iran an existential threat and the biggest danger to the future of the country, hence its concern about Iran's increasing influence in the Middle East.
Israel had an unspoken understanding with Syria that allowed the two bordering countries to co-exist before Syria's civil war broke out in 2011, CNN said, but that dynamic changed when Syria embraced Iranian presence there.
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