Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, has gathered top security and intelligence officials in an emergency meeting to discuss the security situation in Syria.

Ahead of Wednesday's meeting, Barak issued a statement calling the explosion that allegedly killed three senior Syrian officials, including the brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad and his defence minister, a "huge blow to the Syrian regime" that will "hasten the fall of the Assad family".

Barak said Israel is watching the situation closely to ensure Hezbollah, backed by Iran, did not use the transition period to obtain weapons systems from Damascus.

We are, of course, following our borders, following what happens on the border of Syria and Lebanon in order to make sure that in the transition period Hezbollah will not grab some advance weapons systems from Syria and will try move weapons systems, be it ground-to-ground missiles or surface-to-air missiles or probably some warfare chemical material into the hands of Hezbollah.