Israel confirms strike on Iran target in Syria

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday said that Israel had at the weekend carried out an air strike on Iranian weapons in Syria, a rare public confirmation of such attacks.

"Just in the last 36 hours the air force attacked Iranian warehouses containing Iranian weapons in the Damascus international airport," Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting, according to his office.

"The accumulation of recent attacks shows that we're more determined than ever to act against Iran in Syria, just as we promised."

Netanyahu added that Israel had attacked Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria hundreds of times.

Israel has pledged to prevent its main enemy Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria, where it is backing President Bashar al-Assad's regime alongside Russia and Hezbollah.

It rarely publicly confirms such strikes, though outgoing military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot has spoken of them in interviews in recent days.