The Israeli newspaper "Haaretz", which managed to gain access to the closed briefing of the Head of the Israeli National Security Council, Yaakov Amidror, quoted Amidror as warning European diplomats that Israel would "prevent the S-300 missiles from becoming operational." That may be achieved by ensuring Assad does not get the full system, experts say, or by disabling it militarily if he does.
"From what he Amidror had said, we realized that the Israeli government finds it impossible to stop the transfer of the missiles, so it will take action against them after the transfer," RIA News quotes the source.
Experts agree that Israeli sabotage or open force to disrupt delivery by Russia is extremely unlikely - a view seemingly shored up by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's announcement on Thursday that the first missiles had arrived, Reuters reports. In May, Netanyahu flew to Sochi, where, it is believed, he unsuccessfully tried to dissuade the Russian leadership from supplying missiles.
That leaves Israel lobbying Moscow to slow down the shipment, in the hope it would be overtaken and scrapped if Assad fell to the more than two-year-old rebellion, and in parallel preparing counter-measures to neutralise the S-300 on the ground in Syria.
To the Israeli authorities, at least in their own words, the Russian S-300 missiles give Syria the ability to "close" almost the whole of Israeli airspace, and with the the country being in a civil war there is a threat that these weapons will end up in the hands of radicals.
Meanwhile, Bashar Assad said today that about 100 thousand mercenaries from other countries are fighting against him in Syria. "Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar support and finance armed groups. About 100 thousand Arab and other foreign fighters came to Syria with the help of these states," the Syrian leader said.
