Beirut - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a Venezuelan television interview broadcast on Thursday that Israeli military strikes on his army showed Israel was “supporting terrorists” in Syria, state-run Syrian media reported.

Assad did not directly refer to the Israeli air strikes near Damascus airport early on Thursday and Syria’s official SANA news agency, which carried quotes from the interview with Venezuela’s Telesur channel, did not say when it was recorded.

President Bashar al-Assad is backed in Syria’s six-year-old civil war by Russia, Iran and regional Shi’ite Muslim militias. These include Hezbollah, a close ally of Tehran and enemy of Israel, which describes the group as the biggest threat it faces on its borders. The two fought a month-long war in 2006.

Syrian military defectors familiar with the functioning of the airport during the war said on Thursday that it plays a major role as a conduit for arms from Tehran.

Alongside military planes, a number of commercial cargo aircraft fly from Iran to resupply arms to Hezbollah and other groups, passing through Iraqi airspace, the defectors said.

As well as weapons, hundreds of Shi’ite militia fighters from Iraq and Iran have been flown to Damascus international airport, they said.

Intelligence sources put their numbers at 10,000 to 20,000 and say they play a significant role in military campaigns launched by the Syrian army.

Israel has largely kept out the war in Syria, but officials have consistently referred to two red lines that have prompted a military response in the past - any supply of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah, and the establishment of “launch sites” for attacks on Israel from the Golan Heights region.

Speaking in Moscow on Wednesday, where he was attending a security conference, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman reiterated that Israel “will not allow Iranian and Hezbollah forces to be amassed on the Golan Heights border”.

Lieberman held talks with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as part of efforts by Israel to coordinate with Moscow on actions in Syria and avoid the risk of confrontation.

A Defence Ministry statement said Lieberman had expressed concern to Russian ministers over “Iranian activity in Syria and the Iranian use of Syrian soil as a base for arms smuggling to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

A Western diplomat said the air strikes sent a clear political message to Iran, effectively saying it could no longer use Iraqi and Syrian airspace to resupply proxies with impunity.

Speaking to Reuters in Washington on Wednesday, Intelligence Minister Katz said he was seeking an understanding with the Trump administration that Iran not be allowed to establish a permanent military foothold in Syria.

Israeli officials estimate that Iran commands about 25,000 fighters in Syria, including members of its own Revolutionary Guard, Shi’ite militants from Iraq and recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Israel has also said that Hezbollah has built up an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets, many of which would be capable of striking anywhere within Israeli territory. The last conflict between the two left 1,300 people dead and uprooted more than a million Lebanese and 300,000 to 500,000 Israelis.