Israel held top-level security consultations on Wednesday amid concern it could be targeted by Syria if the United States strikes Syrian government forces over an alleged poison gas assault, Reuters reports.
A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet and Israeli strategic affairs experts voiced doubt that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, embroiled in a protracted civil war, would risk direct conflict with Israel.
But they said Israel - which has the region’s most powerful military - was taking seriously an Iranian threat to respond to a strike on Monday on an airbase on Syria which Damascus, Tehran and Moscow have blamed on Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied carrying out the attack.