A senior Israeli minister yesterday made the Jewish state’s most explicit call yet for military intervention to topple President Bashar al-Assad and accused him of committing genocide to suppress the 15-month-old uprising against his rule.

Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz urged world powers to oust Assad in the same way that last year’s Western-backed campaign in Libya overthrew former strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

“A crime against humanity, genocide, is being conducted in Syria today. And the silence of the world powers is contrary to all human logic,” Mofaz told Israel’s Army Radio.

“Since in the not-distant past the powers chose military intervention in Libya, here the required conclusion would be immediate military intervention to bring down the Assad regime.”

Israel had so far taken a cautious line on the uprising in its Arab neighbour. While the overthrow of Assad would weaken his close ally and Israel’s main enemy Iran, it has been wary of what might happen if the Syrian leader were to be replaced by an Islamist government more hostile to the Jewish state.

The military chief, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, said last week he saw a “lose-lose prospect” for Israel whichever way the Syria conflict played out.

But with Israeli public opinion appalled by media reports of mounting Syrian civilian deaths, some officials had begun to suggest privately that they would welcome foreign military intervention.

A belief that the uprising may have reached a tipping point and can no longer be rolled back has also given more space to hawks who see in Assad’s fall an opportunity to weaken Iran - whose nuclear programme is Israel’s biggest security concern.

Assad, from the minority Alawite sect, considered an offshoot of Shia Islam, has close ties both with Shia Iran and the Lebanese Shia political and military group Hezbollah, which was originally set up to oppose Israel.

But during his rule, Israel maintained what it believed to be a manageable standoff with Syria which might spin out of control were an organisation like the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood - ruthlessly crushed by his father Bashar al-Assad - to take charge next door.

Comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, however, suggested that concerns about Iran may be starting to predominate in Israel’s calculations.

“This is a slaughter carried out not only by the Syrian government. It is being helped by Iran and Hezbollah,” he said in broadcast remarks to his cabinet. “The world should understand what kind of environment we live in.”

Netanyahu has steered clear of explicitly calling for military intervention in Syria, telling Bild newspaper last week: “That’s a decision for the leading powers who are now talking about it. The less I say as prime minister of Israel, the better.”