Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes Iran was behind this week's Hezbollah attack on Israel. Photo: Cherie Cullen.

JNS.org – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Iran, the state sponsor of Hezbollah, “is the one behind yesterday’s attack” on northern Israel that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others.

Speaking at a memorial service that marked the one-year anniversary of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s death, Netanyahu said, “This radical power Ariel Sharon spoke about was, and still is, Iran. Today Iran is the one arming, organizing, funding, and sending its terrorist satellites to our borders, both north and south.”

Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at Israel’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, said that Hezbollah’s attack on Wednesday is part of “an attempt to change the strategic rules of the game.” According to Karmon, Iran and Hezbollah have been working for months to take advantage of instability in Syria in order to create a forward military position against Israel in Syria’s Quneitra region, close to the triple Syria-Lebanon-Israel border.

“This is actually an Iranian project,” Karmon told JNS.org. “They have around 1,500 people on the ground in Syria, most of which are counseling or training Syrian militias, and they have Hezbollah providing military support.”