A senior official from Israel said on Wednesday that Israel was currently considering further air strikes in Syria to make sure the transfer of weapons to dangerous Islamic militants is prevented.
At the same time, Israel warned the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, that his country would experience crippling consequences if it were to retaliate against Israel.
The official from Israel said that his country was determined to prevent the shipment of any advanced weapons to leaders of the Hezbollah. Transferring those weapons to the Hezbollah, said the official, would endanger and destabilize the entire Middle East region.
This official in Israel, who has already been briefed from officials who are high ranking, contacted the New York Times this week, but would not disclose his name.
The motives for the warning issued by Israel were not certain. It could be that Israel wanted to restrain the behavoir of Syria without taking any further action militarily or it could be altering other countries of another possible strike.
However, that would cause the tension in the area to ratchet up because of the already difficult situation taking place in Syria, where the civil war that started over two years ago is becoming bloodier and bloodier.
Close to two weeks ago, the first air strike by Israel hit Syria at a Republican Guard base, some store houses for long-range missiles and a research center manned by the military that officials in the U.S. said was Syria’s largest chemical weapons site.
