Alleged Israeli Air Strike in Syria Targets Iran-backed Militia Base
Thursday, 22 October 2020 | Three Hezbollah-linked fighters were reportedly killed in air strikes attributed to Israel overnight on Wednesday, a Syrian war monitor reported.
After midnight, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Israeli rockets targeted a school in the Syrian providence of Quneitra in the Syrian Golan Heights, where Iran-backed fighters with ties to Lebanese terror group Hezbollah were reportedly staying.
According to SOHR, one of the fighters killed in the strike was Syrian, while the nationality of the others was not confirmed. The war monitor did not mention any civilian casualties or provide any other details.
SOHR chief Rami Abdul Rahman did say, however, that the three former fighters were part of the Syrian Resistance to Liberate the Golan. The group has ties to Hezbollah and was established six years ago to organize and carry out attacks on the Israeli Golan Heights—which Syria still claims as its own.
Israel maintains a long-held policy of declining to comment on its involvement in cross-border attacks. However, in a deviation from the hush policy, Defense Minister Benny Gantz hinted at the Israeli military’s involvement in the late-night strikes.
“I won’t go into who fired what last night,” Gantz told Israeli Kan public broadcaster. “We won’t allow terrorist operatives from Hezbollah or Iran to set up on the Golan Heights border and we will do what is necessary to drive them out of there.”
Gantz’s words of warning are the latest in similar statements made by other Israeli military and political leaders over the years who have asserted that the Jewish state will not allow its enemies—particularly Iran and its proxies—to entrench themselves along Israel’s borders.
Israeli leaders have acknowledged launching hundreds of strikes in Syria since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in 2011. Iran, Hezbollah and other terror groups and sponsors have used the chaos of the war-torn country as an opportunity to get their feet in the door and place themselves within easy striking distance of the Jewish state.
Over the years, strikes attributed to the Israel Defense Forces have targeted weapons shipments from Tehran to their puppet fighters in Syria and occasionally Lebanon as well as fighters and other terror targets.
The most recent Israeli-attributed air strikes in Syria took place on September 14, SOHR said, targeting Iran-backed fighters near the Iraqi border. According to the war monitor, ammunitions depots and Iran-backed militia vehicles were destroyed in the strike, and ten fighters—again, backed by Iran—were killed.
This is the Israeli method of war-between-wars in which it conducts covert strikes on terror and military targets in order to prevent Iran and other anti-Israel groups from stockpiling weapons and troops along Israel’s borders.