July 24, 2020
Israel is preparing for a limited confrontation with the Islamic Republic as Israel continues to act against Iranian entrenchment in Syria and Iraq, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), says.
“There is a possibility that we will face a limited confrontation with Iran and we are preparing for it,” Kochavi said at an annual conference where the chief of staff generally makes his major speech of the year.
He said it would have been better had Israel not been the only one engaged in the effort to stop Iran, an apparent swipe at the United States and the Arab states.
The IDF, he said, is carrying out operations both publicly and below-the-radar to prevent Iran from deploying precision missiles, even if those operations eventually bring about a confrontation.
“We will not allow Iran to entrench itself in Syria or in Iraq,” Kochavi said, publicly acknowledging for the first time that the Israeli Air Force has been attacking Iranian targets in Iraq. About two years ago, Israel publicly acknowledged it had been attacking Iranian targets in Syria for several years.
“Iraq is undergoing a civil war, when the Qods Force is operating there on a daily basis, when the country itself has turned into an ungoverned area. Advanced weapons are being smuggled by the Qods Force into Iraq on a monthly basis and we can’t allow that,” he said.
According to Kochavi, there’s been a change in threats, with all fronts active in trying to carry out terror or rocket attacks against Israel.
“It wasn’t always like that,” he said, pointing to years of relative quiet from Lebanon and Syria. But over the last few months there were many instances where there were warnings of immediate threats to Israel that the Israeli military says it had to contend with.
While over the years, Iran has not been regarded as an immediate threat, it has now been transformed into “an enemy that we can see and that we deal with,” Kochavi said, adding Israel’s “ultimate goal is to instill in our enemies the feeling of despair and doubt in their ability to achieve their aggressive aims.”
Officials of the Islamic Republic have frequently declared that both Israel and the United States are trying to make the Iranian public despair.
According to the chief of staff, Iran is more active in the Middle East against the Persian Gulf states, where they are able to strike “without retaliation, without response, without deterrence. But we do respond.”
Iran continues to produce missiles that can reach Israeli territory, Kochavi said, explaining the Iranian military industry is much larger than all the military industries of Israel combined, allowing for them to produce more precise and long-range rockets to threaten the Israeli home front.
In addition, the Qods Force in Syria as well as Hezbollah have spectrum barriers and advanced anti-aircraft missiles that can threaten Israeli jets, which nonetheless continue to have freedom of operation across the Middle East.
According to the chief of staff, while war is a solution to be used after all diplomatic solutions have been exhausted, “in the next war, be it to the north or with Gaza, the intensity of enemy firepower will be great.”
“There can be no war without casualties and I cannot guarantee a short war,” he said. “We will need national resilience.”
“I’m looking at everyone in the eye; it will be intense. We have to prepare for that. We have to prepare for that militarily, on the home front, and mentally,” Kochavi warned.