Israel has reportedly struck a number of Iranian targets inside Syria, following a series of clashes over the weekend.
“We have a permanent policy, to strike at the Iranian entrenchment in Syria and hurt whoever tries to hurt us,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured above) said before the attack.
Israel claimed to be targeting the Iranian Quds Forces, which is in charge of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards operations overseas, issuing a very rare statement about its military operations in Syria.
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“We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory. We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory,” Israel said in the statement.
According to witnesses in the Syrian capital of Damascus, explosions could be heard for nearly an hour, as Israel launched waves of guided missiles.
Syrian state media said that the attack had been thwarted by Syrian air defence systems, and that most of the “hostile targets” were destroyed before reaching their targets.
The missile launches “followed cross-border attacks on Sunday in which Syria said it repelled an Israeli air attack”, The Guardian says, and comes after Israel had “intercepted a rocket fired at the Golan Heights”.
According to the Times of Israel the projectile intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system was a “surface-to-surface missile deliberately fired from Syria at Israel”, apparently fired in retaliation for an Israeli air raid.
Israel had earlier “carried out a rare daylight air raid near the Damascus international airport”, The Washington Post reports, using Lebanon’s airspace to “strike deep inside Syria”.
