TEHRAN, December 27 - Lebanon is set to lodge a complaint against Israel at the United Nations Security Council, after airstrikes launched by Israeli military aircraft targeting Syria threatened civilian airliners flying over the Lebanese airspace.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Caretaker Lebanese Transportation Minister Youssef Fenianos said the aerial assaults had put at risk the lives of hundreds of civilians, who were on board passenger planes flying over Lebanon at the time of the attack.
A statement, released by Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry, denounced Israel's use of Lebanese airspace to launch attacks against “friendly countries” – in reference to Syria.
It called on the UN and the international community to denounce the aggression.
Lebanon’s Caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil also instructed Lebanese Ambassador to the UN Amal Mudallali to lodge a complaint against Israel at the Security Council.
Russian officials said on Wednesday that Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday night had threatened two airliners that were preparing to land in Damascus and Beirut.
“The provocative actions of the Israeli air force ... directly threatened two airliners,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
He added that Israel had launched the raid at the time when two civilian airliners were preparing to land, creating a “direct threat” to the aircraft.
Konashenkov highlighted that the Syrian military didn't fully engage its air defense systems in a bid to avoid hitting the passenger jets accidentally.
He added that Syrian air traffic controllers had redirected the Damascus-bound plane to the Russian-operated Hemeimeem air base in Syria’s western coastal province of Leticia.
Russia’s Defense Ministry announced in a statement that Syria’s air defense missile systems had successfully downed 14 of 16 guided missiles fired during the air raid, adding that six Israeli F-16 jets had taken part in the operation.
The development came only two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria would not affect the Tel Aviv regime’s policy toward the war-torn country.
"The decision to withdraw 2,000 US troops from Syria will not change our consistent policy: We will continue to act against Iran's attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there," Netanyahu said.
On November 30, Syrian air defenses were activated against several missiles, which were aimed at the city of al-Kiswah, located approximately 13 kilometers south of Damascus.
They "were able to foil its goals despite the intensity of the aggression," Syrian state media said at the time.
Israeli media claimed that Iranian military advisers as well as fighters from the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah were the main targets in the attack.
Israeli officials argue that Iran’s presence in Syria, which is part of an advisory mission requested by the Damascus government, poses a threat to the Tel Aviv regime’s security.
The Israeli military, using this pretext, has pounded alleged positions of Iranian and Iran-backed forces across Syria over the course of the seven-year conflict.
The attacks are usually viewed as attempts to prop up foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorist groups that have been suffering defeats at the hands of Syrian government forces and allied fighters from popular defense groups.
Israel and the United States have even put pressure on Russia, another close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the war against terrorist groups, to force Iran out of Syria.
In October, Russia equipped the Syrian army with the advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles, days after Israeli fighter jets used Russian surveillance aircraft flying nearby as a shield and misled the Syrian air defenses to shoot it down. Since then, Israel has been very careful with its operations over Syria.
Source: Press TV
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