Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon called Thursday for "massive intervention" by the international community in Syria to prevent the conflict there engulfing neighbours 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 al-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."
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."
According to former Mossad head Meir Dagan Israel should be helping those forces trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. But he stopped short of spelling out exactly what form that assistance should take.
Dagan’s comments are at odds with the government’s current policy, which is to condemn the violence in Syria but refrain from clearly picking sides for fear of hurting anyone Israel might be trying to help.
In an address to President Shimon Peres’s Facing Tomorrow Conference in Jerusalem, Dagan said that as the Jewish state, Israel should be happy to see the downfall of those using brutal force against their own people. Dagan said that Assad’s fall would weaken Iran’s regional influence, and also weaken Hezbollah, allowing Lebanon “to get to a different political situation.”

EJP