Israel Wants World Action in Syria to Stop Conflict Spread
Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon called Thursday for "massive intervention" by the international community in Syria to prevent the conflict there engulfing neighbors Lebanon and Iraq.
"The longer the wait, the more chaos and victims there will be," Ayalon told a small group of journalists in Paris ahead of talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
"There's not much that Israel can do, it's up to the Syrian people, the West and Russia to find a solution to stop the massacres."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday that more than 15,000 people have been killed in Syria since a revolt erupted in March last year against President Bashar Assad's regime.
"We need a whole package: massive intervention from the international community on the Bosnian model, Russia should be aboard, clemency for Assad and his family," Ayalon said.
"The danger is for the war to spill over into Lebanon and Iraq, two countries that are like mirror images of Syria."
Syria remains formally at war with Israel, which in 1967 invaded and later annexed the Golan Heights, and Israel has in the past said little publicly about the conflict in its neighbor.
But in recent months, Israeli politicians have said Assad's overthrow is a matter of time and have condemned the bloodshed, hoping that the regime's collapse could weaken the position of arch foe Iran, a staunch ally of Assad.
Israeli President Shimon Peres called on the international community earlier this month to bolster its efforts to stop the bloodshed in Syria, saying he hoped the rebels would win.
The "efforts of the international community are insufficient," Peres said.
"We cannot remain indifferent to the tiny coffins that contain the bodies of children."
Source: Agence France Presse
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