Israel’s Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told his nation’s Army Radio on Wednesday, October 3 that the S-300 system will not have much of an affect against their warplanes, Al-Masdar News says.

“The operational abilities of the air force are such that those (S-300) batteries really do not constrain the air force’s abilities to act,” he says.

“You know that we have stealth fighters, the best planes in the world. These batteries are not even able to detect them,” he continued.

The Israeli minister said that Russia already had their S-300 systems inside of Syria, so the weapon had already been factored in.

Furthermore, he said Israel made it clear that they will not back down and will continue conducting their operations inside Syria.

“We have clarified to the Syrians more than once that we will not step back from our commitment to prevent Iran’s entrenchment in Syria,” Hanegbi said, adding a veiled threat to take action against the S-300 on the ground: “We were already forced, a few months ago, to destroy Syrian missile batteries, and I hope they won’t challenge us in the future.”