Likud Minister Tzachi Hanegbi on Sunday traded barbs with Iran on Twitter, following his comments in a radio interview that Israel is the only country that "has been killing Iranians", after tensions between Britain and Iran rose in the Gulf.
On Sunday morning, speaking to Reshet Bet radio, Hanegbi said, "Israel is the only country in the world that has been killing Iranians for two years. We strike the Iranians hundreds of times in Syria. Sometimes we acknowledge it and sometimes foreign reports reveal it.”
He added that the Iranians "understand that Israel means business."
Iran’s state-owned Press TV later picked up Hanegbi’s remarks and quoted them on Twitter while adding, “This is how Israelis are freely and proudly talking about killing Iranians! Just imagine what would happen if it was the other way around!”
Hanegbi later replied in a series of tweets of his own.
“I saw that the murderous regime in Iran did not like that I mentioned this morning that the IDF has been exacting from it a heavy price for its unrelenting aggression against Israel. [Supreme Leader] Khamenei and [President] Rouhani were very insulted,” he wrote.
“So I thought of a creative idea that could ease Iran's sensitivity: You will stop placing surface-to-surface missile batteries, UAVs, bases of Shiite militias and terrorist infrastructures on Syrian territory, aimed at killing Israelis. You will stop arming Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad with deadly weapons systems aimed at killing Israelis,” he continued.
“When that happens, we will no longer have to destroy Iranian terrorist arrays and there will be no more Iranian casualties. Deal?” concluded Hanegbi.