Israel reportedly struck a pre-emptive tone this week and warned Iran it will strike any arms shipments headed for Syria under the guise of international aid after a catastrophic earthquake hit Turkey and Syria this week.
Rescuers are still dragging people trapped under the rubble as international aid continues to arrive. An estimated 22,000 people have been killed since the 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the region four days ago, according to reports on Friday.
However, the crisis has Israeli security officials concerned that Iran will use the devastating event to funnel arms to the Hezbollah terror group, which it has supported since its inception in the early 1980s.
A devastating earthquake hit Syria on February 6. (AP Photo)
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“There are reports that Iran will take advantage of the tragic situation in Syria and, under the cover of humanitarian aid, will send weapons and equipment to Hezbollah,” an unnamed Israeli military official told Saudi Arabia’s Elaph newspaper on Wednesday.
The unnamed official reportedly told the publication that Israel was “ready to strike any equipment or weapon anywhere inside Syrian territory.”
Fox News Digital could not independently verify whether Iran has taken steps to funnel weapons into Syria under the guise of aid, although a reporter from the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation took to Twitter to post a video Thursday of “militias pro-Iranian in Iraq”. travel in a convoy deliver “aid … to earthquake victims in Syria”.
In a separate video on Friday, the journalist released footage of an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander, Brig-Gen Esmail Qaani, who was allegedly sighted in the western Syrian city of Latakia “to monitor aid to earthquake victims”.
Quds Force Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani speaks at a ceremony to commemorate the death anniversary of a Quds Force commander in Tehran, Dec. 20, 2022. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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He also reportedly met with the local governor.
Israeli intelligence and security expert Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, now a senior research scientist at the Israel Defense Security Forum, told Fox News Digital that “Iran has used humanitarian disasters in the past to transport weapons clandestinely and illegally and may very well try to use this humanitarian disaster in Syria as bait to transport further advanced weapon systems to Syria.”
Kuperwasser said Tehran would most likely seek to send advanced air defense batteries, stray munitions such as “kamikaze drones” and long-range missile components.
Iran and Israel have long been engaged in a proxy war in Syria since civil war broke out in 2011, and clandestine operations across the Middle East have been commonplace.
Syrian men walk in a street amid destroyed buildings where three bombs exploded in Saadallah al-Jabri square, in Aleppo, Syria October 3, 2012. Whole blocks of apartment buildings have been destroyed in Syria’s deadly civil war. (AP Photo/SANA)
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However, the earthquake’s regional devastation could allow Iran to expand its support for forces in Syria and beyond.
“Iran continues to exploit Syria’s weakness and dependence on external assistance to advance Iran’s strategy of regional dominance and weapons deployment near Israel,” Kuperwasser said. “It should be clear to the world that Iran is a global disruptor and a threat not just to Israel or the Middle East.”
