Minister of Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi downplayed the impact of Russia's recent delivery S-300 air defense systems to Syria, saying Wednesday that Israel's stealth fighters could defeat the new upgraded system and possibly destroy it on the ground.
On Tuesday, Moscow announced that it had delivered the S-300 to Syria, a decision it took after accusing Israel of being responsible for the downing of a Russian spy plane by Syrian forces. The Syrian missile that downed the Russian plane and killed all 15 crew members was fired in response to an Israeli airstrike last month.
Damascus and Moscow have described the addition of S-300 batteries to Syria's arsenal as a major deterrent. Israel and Washington have both voiced misgivings about the S-300 handover.
But asked in an interview if the Syrian acquisition of the S-300 would clip the IDF's wings, Hanegbi said: "Unequivocally, no."
"The operational abilities of the Israeli Air Force are such that those [S-300] batteries really do not constrain the air force's abilities to act," he told Army Radio.
Referring to F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that Israel began receiving from the United States over a year ago, Hanegbi said: "You know that we have stealth fighters, the best planes in the world. These batteries are not even able to detect them."
Reuters reported in 2015 that Israel had trained to confront a Russian-supplied S-300 system in Greece.
Israel says its air raids on Syria are needed to foil deployments and arms transfers by Iran or Lebanon's Hezbollah terrorist group, allies of Damascus.
Hanegbi said that Russia had previously stationed its own S-300 batteries in Syria, so the system's capabilities had long been factored into Israel's defensive planning. Syria's military would require "a few months" to get its S-300 operational, he said.
"We have clarified to the Syrians more than once that we will not step back from our commitment to prevent Iran's entrenchment in Syria," Hanegbi said, adding a veiled threat to take action against the S-300 on the ground: "We were already forced, a few months ago, to destroy Syrian missile batteries, and I hope they won't challenge us in the future."
In a rare announcement last month, Israel confirmed it had carried out more than 200 airstrikes in Syria over the last two years – at an average rate of twice a week – with Russia largely turning a blind eye. There have been no reports of such missions since the Russian plane was shot down on Sept. 17, however.
Hanegbi said that this hiatus was a "tactical situation" rather than a strategic reassessment by Israel.
Asked if Iran and its allies had used this lull to step up their activities in Syria, Hanegbi said he had seen "no basis for that" in Israeli intelligence assessments.
