Gantz: Flames from Syria are licking Nasrallah’s robe

„The Israel Air Force is ready to carry out any mission, be it near or far, and those who know us know that we do not just talk — we act,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday at the Israel Air Force 166th cadets’ graduation ceremony, held at the Hazerim Airbase in southern Israel.

„We strive for peace and we hold out our hand, but we will not close our eyes to reality or foster a pipe dream. We follow the developments across our borders very carefully. We have both defensive and offensive capabilities and we know how to combine them.

„We operated in various arenas this year, sometimes secretly and some openly and the IAF’s pilots and navigators achieved their [operational] goals. The Jews’ future depends on the Jewish state, and the Jewish state’s future depends first and foremost on the Israel Defense Forces,” Netanyahu concluded.

„Syria is still bleeding and in Lebanon, the flames have begun to lick [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah’s robe. The current strategic outlook is more challenging than ever and we must be more vigilant than ever,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said.

„The Air Force is Israel’s strategic, surgical and lethal arm and it has the ability to exert a heavy toll on anyone who tries to harm us, anywhere and anytime.”

Gantz’s somewhat unusual, direct statement on Nasrallah was made following defense establishment assessments that strategically, Hezbollah is currently experiencing one of its lowest points in years, as the Shiite terror group is engaged in three fronts: against Israel, inside Syria and vis-à-vis the internal Lebanese arena.

The IDF believes that so far, Hezbollah has lost over 200 operatives in Syrian battles against rebel force operating in Lebanon, and that its casualties in the Syrian civil war number in the thousands.

The Shiite terror group is also responsible for the deaths of countless innocent people in Syria. Over the past year Hezbollah has increased its involvement in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s attempt to crush the uprising against him, which has been raging since March 2011, and more of its operatives have been fighting alongside Assad’s forces across Syria and along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Military assessments indicate that despite its strategic difficulties, Hezbollah continues to transfer weapons from Syria to Lebanon in an effort to maintain its readiness for a possible a confrontation with Israel.

IAF chief Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel told his new pilots that the regional reality „has forced us to launch many operations over the past year. Many of them were covert and stretched the boundaries of imagination. The IAF must be ready for anything. We do not get a second chance.”

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon also addressed the graduates saying, „You must be ready to be called on at a moment’s notice and you will need to demonstrate your abilities and target those who seek to disrupt our life here.

„There are those who tirelessly try to arm themselves, who aspire to obtain dangerous weapons in any way possible or accumulate unconventional abilities that will threaten our cities and our citizens and will destabilize the entire Middle East,” he said.

Commenting on the presidential elections in Iran, Ya’alon said Israel is „following the developments in Iran closely. They had just elected a new president with old ambitions — to obtain a nuclear weapon and threaten the only democracy in the Middle East, the entire region and the entire Western World.”

„Israel is facing many complicated challenged, but the IDF and the IAF have the ability to face these threats. The IAF’s reputation is part of Israel’s power of deterrence,” President Shimon Peres said at the ceremony.

„We are facing many challenges but we are also facing new opportunities. Both can be seen more clearly when you are in the cockpit, 50,000 feet up in the air, with a bird’s-eye view of the regional map.

„I know that you are ready to ward off any danger and make the best of any opportunity, be it the negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, which can be resumed immediately, or a global threat. Your jet has two wings: one protecting Israel and the other offering peace,” he said.

Due to the recent cuts in the defense budget, the IAF chose to hold a smaller graduation ceremony, similar to pilots’ graduation ceremonies held in the winter.