Responding to Rocket Fire, Israeli Forces Carry Out Strikes in Syria
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Version 0 of 1. JERUSALEM — Four rockets fired from Syrian territory landed in the Israeli-held part of the Golan Heights and in Israel’s Upper Galilee on Thursday, prompting Israeli retaliatory strikes against more than a dozen Syrian posts, according to the Israeli military. Israel blamed Iran for what appeared to be the most serious flare-up in the area in months. There were no casualties on the Israeli side, but the rocket attack comes at a diplomatically delicate time as Israel tries to lobby the United States Congress to reject what Israel views as a detrimental nuclear deal reached between the world powers and Iran. An Israeli military official said the rocket fire was “clearly intentional,” as opposed to errant rockets and mortar shells that have landed in Israeli-held territory as a result of spillover from the Syrian civil war. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with army rules, said it was probably the largest salvo of rockets fired out of Syria toward Israel in four years. The Israeli news media said this was also the first time that rockets launched from Syrian territory had landed in the Galilee since the 1973 war. Israel said it held the Syrian government responsible for attacks from its territory. In retaliation, Israel said it carried out artillery and airstrikes against 14 Syrian army posts and facilities in the Syrian-held portion of the Golan Heights. An activist affiliated with the opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who goes by the name Abu Omar al-Golani, said via Skype that the Israeli bombardment had destroyed the artillery of the 90th brigade of the Syrian Army and hit other targets in the Quneitra area on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group in Britain, said that initial reports indicated that there were casualties among the Syrian forces. Al Manar, the television channel run by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite organization, said Israeli shells had also hit the city of Quneitra. The official Syrian news agency, SANA, said several missiles hit the transportation directorate and other official buildings in Quneitra. In a conference call with reporters, the Israeli military official said that an Iranian named Saeed Izaadhi, who the official said heads the Palestinian division of the Iranian Al-Quds Force, had “orchestrated” the rocket attack, and that the rockets were fired by the Islamic Jihad, which Israel says is financed and armed by Iran and acts as its proxy. Islamic Jihad is more commonly known to operate in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. The military official offered no evidence of the involvement of either Mr. Izaadhi, who the official described as “the man in charge of the weapons-smuggling issue on Syrian territory in the name of the Al Quds Forces,” or of Islamic Jihad. Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, drew a direct line between the nuclear agreement and Thursday’s rocket fire. In a statement, he said, “In the wake of the signing of the nuclear deal with Iran and the lifting of economic sanctions that had been imposed on it, what we have seen this evening could be a preview of a richer and more murderous Iran.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that it had lodged a diplomatic protest with the world powers that negotiated the agreement with Iran. In April, an Israeli airstrike killed members of an armed squad that the military said was preparing to bomb Israeli forces in the Israeli-held part of the Golan Heights, contested territory that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War. In January, an Israeli airstrike killed several fighters with Hezbollah, which is fighting with Mr. Assad’s forces, and an Iranian general in southern Syria. Israel said at the time that the group was planning attacks on Israeli targets across the cease-fire line in the Golan. The death of the general added to the evidence of Iran’s deep military involvement in the Syrian civil war, and Israeli leaders have been warning that the nuclear deal would provide Iran with more funds to sponsor anti-Israel groups in the region. |