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Saudi Arabia condemns Israeli airstrikes on Syria | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud attends the Arab League Summit in Doha, Qatar, 26 March 2013.(EPA)


Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud attends the Arab League Summit in Doha, Qatar, 26 March 2013.(EPA)

Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud attends the Arab League Summit in Doha, Qatar, 26 March 2013.(EPA)

Jeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat—The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has condemned the series of Israeli airstrikes on Syrian territories and has called on the United Nations Security Council to take the necessary steps to ensure they are not repeated.

“The Cabinet expressed deep concern about the continuing deterioration of the situation in Syria and called on the UN Security Council to take urgent action to stop the Israeli attacks on Syrian territory and prevent repetition of them, expressing denunciation by the Kingdom of these flagrant attacks and considered them a serious violation of the sovereignty of an Arab state, and warned of their serious consequences on security and stability of the region,” said a statement after the weekly meeting of the Cabinet chaired by Crown Prince Salman, the deputy premier and minister of defence.

Israeli raids on Syrian targets near Damascus over the weekend killed at least 42 soldiers, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

UN leader Ban Ki-moon has warned against any escalation of a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people in Syria since it erupted in March 2011.

In a related development, the Lebanese Hezbollah group said today that the Israeli air strikes in Syria aimed to boost Sunni Islamist rebels fighting President Bashar Al-Assad. It was silent on Israeli assertions that the attacks targeted missiles headed for the Shi’ite group in neighbouring Lebanon.

Israeli officials said the air strikes on Friday and Sunday were not meant to influence its neighbour’s civil war, but only to stop Iranian missiles reaching Hezbollah militants.