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Israel doesn't want war but if Iran attacks Tel Aviv, we will hit Tehran Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman

The comments by Avigdor Lieberman were an unusually explicit Israeli threat to take military action within Iranian territory, and followed a surge of unprecedented confrontations between the countries' forces in civil war-torn Syria.



Mr Lieberman told the London-based, Saudi-owned news website Elaph: ”Israel doesn't want war but if Iran attacks Tel Aviv, we will hit Tehran.”

Coastal Tel Aviv is Israel's commercial capital, where its military is headquartered. An Israeli-Iranian showdown has been looming since February 10, when Israel said an armed drone which was sent from a Syrian base penetrated its air space.

GETTY Defence minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel would strike Tehran if attacked

GETTY A picture of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is burned on the streets of Tehran during a demonstration

Israel destroyed the drone and carried out a raid on Syrian air defences in which one of its F-16 jets was downed. On April 9, an air strike killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members at the Syrian base. Tehran blamed Israel and vowed unspecified retaliation, which in turn drew Israeli counter-threats to broaden attacks on Iranian military assets in Syria.

The Israelis say their strikes are aimed at preventing Iran's garrison in Syria from entrenching itself deeper in support of President Bashar al-Assad and linking with Hezbollah in Lebanon to form a broad front against them.

GETTY US President Donald Trump has threatened to pull the plug on the Iran nuclear deal

Mr Lieberman added: ”Every outpost in which we see Iran positioning militarily in Syria, we will destroy, and we will not allow this no matter what the price.” Iran, which does not recognise Israel's right to exist, has frequently issued threat to strike the city. The two countries have been at loggerheads for decades, and have effectively been fighting a proxy war since the mid-2000s. Earlier this year, Israel for the first time admitted that it bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.