Israeli Minister Says Conflict with Syria Is 'Inevitable', Names New 'Sunni Axis'

Amichai Chikli, a far-right minister from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs, told radio interviewers this week that Israel “will be at war with Syria sooner or later.” In a series of interviews on Wednesday and Thursday he described what he called a "radical Sunni axis of evil," and accused the government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa of being a "jihadist regime rooted in Isis and al-Qaeda" whose aim, he said, was the unification of Jerusalem.

Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio, Chikli also warned of a perceived anti-Israel alignment that he said includes Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, which he described as more worrying than Iran and its ceasefire deal with the US. His remarks exemplify a hawkish strain of rhetoric within Netanyahu’s coalition and are likely to heighten tensions in the region, as reported by Middle East Eye