Israeli leaders strongly condemned on Tuesday a suspected chemical weapons attack carried out by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We, as a people who survived the greatest of atrocities and rose from the ashes to be a strong and secure nation, we will do all we can to continue to aid the survivors of the horrors in Syria,” said Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. “We know all too well how dangerous silence can be, and we cannot remain mute.”

“The pictures we are seeing today from Syria and the reports of the massacre of children, of civilians, with chemical weapons, is a stain on all humanity. The international community in its entirety must come together to bring an end to this murderous madness, and ensure that such scenes will never be repeated anywhere,” Rivlin’s statement continued.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his horror at the atrocity: “When I saw pictures of babies suffocating from a chemical attack in Syria, I was shocked and outraged. There’s no, none, no excuse whatsoever for the deliberate attacks on civilians and on children, especially with cruel and outlawed chemical weapons.”

“It is a murderous regime that lost its humanity,” said Isaac Herzog, the leader of the Israeli opposition who chairs the Zionist Union party. “The United States and the world should not stand with indifference against those horrific images; they should take the proper measures to stop this madness.”

Israel’s former chief of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, said that the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against civilians is a red line and even suggested that Israel should destroy Syrian planes engaged in such attacks. Assad should “pay for his war crimes,” he said, adding, “another chemical attack and the world stays silent.”

[Photo: IsraeliPM / YouTube ]