While Turkey is currently slamming Israel over the Gaza border crisis, Israel provided it with secret intelligence to help Turkey prevent ISIS terror attacks, Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said on Wednesday.

Katz made the statement at an intelligence conference in Tel Aviv, sponsored by the Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center and Israel Defense.

The intelligence minister addressed the growing role of technology in the intelligence arena, saying that “It is not enough to work on technology, we must lead in that arena.”

At the same conference, Deputy National Security Council chief Eitan Ben David said that Israel was hoping US President Donald Trump’s recent decisiobn to leave the Iran nuclear deal will lead to either pressure isolating Iran globally or a better deal including issues of concern to Israel left out of the first one.

Sticking to that same Iran theme, top Defense Ministry official Zohar Palti said at the conference that Israel would not tolerate any Iranian presence in Syria, “not 20 kilometers, 30, 40” or at any distance and that the Iranians “need to go home.”

While Palti emphasized Israeli strength, former defense minister Moshe Yaalon emphasized critical security and intelligence questions Israel must answer including how to deter Iran from getting nuclear weapons and threatening Israel from Syria as well as trying to figure out how to get Hamas to end the Gaza border crisis.

Yaalon added that the reason Israel has managed to keep Hamas from a broader conflict since 2014 to date “is supreme intelligence superiority,” noting that every time Hamas tried to attack with tunnels, rockets or gun fire as occurred this week – Israeli intelligence has identified the threats in advance and has been one step ahead.

Source : www.jpost.com