Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday confirmed Israeli planes carried out a military operation in Syria earlier this month, said local news reports.

Netanyahu, a former Israeli prime minister, is the first Israeli official to confirm earlier media reports of the raid.

Israeli army vehicles manoeuvre during a military training exercise in the Golan Heights Wednesday.
(Tsafrir Abayov/Associated Press)

Israeli government officials haven't commented on the incident, which was reported by foreign news organizations as an airstrike on an alleged Syrian nuclear site in the country's north.

Speaking to Israel's Channel 1 news, Netanyahu said he supported Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to carry out the Sept. 6 operation.

At the time, Syrian officials said its air defences fired on the Israeli planes.

The two countries remain technically at war since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967. The area is strategically important because of its location and water stores.

Subsequent attempts to broker a deal on the disputed region have fallen through. The two sides came close in 2000, when former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak offered to return most of the land to Syria, but that deal also collapsed.

Israel and Syria have accused each other of preparing for war amid months of cross-border tension and troop escalation near the Golan Heights.

Last year, Israeli jets flew over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's palace in the country's northwest.