Netanyahu brandishes remnants of Iranian drone shot down in Israel as he warns against 'dangerous Iran tiger'

Benjamin Netanyahu opened a war of words with the Iranian foreign minister as he used a speech to brandish a piece of Iranian drone destroyed in Israeli airspace and warn that Iran was "greatest threat to our world".

Holding what appeared to be a panel of the Iranian drone shot down last week amid rising tensions between the two powers, the Israeli leader asked Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister: "Do you recognize it? You should, it’s yours. Don’t test us."

Speaking at a Munich security conference on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu appeared to threaten Iran with further retaliation, adding: "We will act if necessary not just against Iran's proxies, but against Iran itself."

Mr Zarif, also speaking at the conference, later dismissed Mr Netanyahu's presentation as "a cartoonish circus, which does not even deserve a response". He accused the Israeli prime minister of attempting to revive anti-Iranian "hysteria".

Sunday's gesture comes scarcely a week after military escalation in Syria raised questions about Israel’s mantle of military supremacy in the Middle East.

Last Saturday Israel claimed an Iranian drone breached its airspace. An Israeli Apache attack helicopter destroyed it, and in a retaliatory move, Israeli fighter jets were scrambled to Syria, where they attacked a series of high-value targets.

It was the largest battery of Israeli strikes on Syria since 1982, during Lebanon’s civil war.

It also carried a heavy price: one of the Israeli jets was hit by Syrian fire, downing the plane. The two pilots ejected over Israel and one is seriously injured.

For Mr Netanyahu, who is fighting corruption charges at home and may welcome the opportunity to flex some foreign policy muscle, the Munich symposium provided an opportunity to sound the alarm on rising Iranian power and gather support to defeat it.

In Syria, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah has played a pivotal role in supporting the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, all but ensuring his victory.

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And in both Syria and Iraq, Iranian troops and Iran-backed militias have played a critical role in battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

Mr Netanyahu warned that Tehran sought to exploit the gap left by Isil for its own advance. He said Iran was “trying to establish this continuous empire surrounding the Middle East from the south in Yemen but also trying to create a land bridge from Iran to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza".

"This is a very dangerous development for our region,” said Mr Netanyahu.

But Iran’s leadership scoffed at his claims. Mr Zarif, who also addressed the conference, called Mr Netanyahu's presentation "a cartoonish circus".

Iran nuclear talks

Mr Zarif denied that Tehran was seeking "hegemony" in the Middle East. He also accused Israel’s top ally the US of using the conference to "revive hysteria" against Iran. US President Donald Trump has frequently called the nuclear deal a bad one.

That view is shared by Mr Netanyahu, who said the 2015 Iran nuclear deal must be scrapped or rewritten in order to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon capabilities.

But signatories France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China say the deal cannot be revisited and Iran is holding up its end by allowing inspections.

Former US secretary of state John Kerry also weighed in, saying it was wrong to assume Iran would obtain a nuclear weapon as soon as the 15-year scope of the deal ends.

"If your house is on fire, are you going to refuse to put it out because you are concerned it will light on fire again in 15 years? Or are you going to put it out and use the intervening time to prevent it ever catching fire again?" Kerry said.

In his 2012 United Nations General Assembly address, Mr Netanyahu held aloft a cartoonish drawing of a bomb to illustrate his concerns about Iran’s progress towards making a nuclear weapon.