Daily Times

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Tehran on Sunday over aggressions by what he called Iran and its “proxies” in Syria, while showing what he claimed was a piece of an Iranian drone shot down in Israeli airspace. Saying he had “a message to the tyrants of Tehran” during a speech at the Munich Security Conference, he warned: “Do not test Israel’s resolve.” He brandished a rectangular piece of dark green metal which he called “a piece of that Iranian drone, or what’s left of it, after we shot it down.” Israel has said it shot down the drone on February 10 after it entered the country from Syria, and responded with a raid on what it said was the Iranian control systems for the craft in Syria. It marked the first time Israel publicly acknowledged hitting Iranian targets in Syria since the 2011 start of the civil war there. During the strikes, one of Israel’s F-16 fighter jets was shot down, believed to be the first loss of an Israeli plane in combat since 1982.

Published in Daily Times, February 19^th 2018.