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The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, announced in three separate statements released over the night of October 19 and 20 that it had attacked a “vital target” in the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat and two others in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The three attacks were carried out “in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity [Israel] against civilians, including children, women, and the elderly” in the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, the group said.
The group went on to vow that its “operations against the strongholds of the [Israeli] enemy will continue at an increasing pace.”
Videos released by the group showed the launch of what appears to be three Iranian-made Shahed-101 suicide drone. This type is said to have a range of 900 kilometers and a cruising speed of 120 kilometers per hour with a warhead weighing eight kilograms.
Late on October 19, the IDF said that its air defenses shot down a drone headed toward Eilat “from the east,” a term used to refer to Iraq. According to the military , the drone was intercepted before entering Israeli airspace. No sirens sounded amid the incident.
The IDF announced later before midnight that its air defenses intercepted a drone that entered Israeli airspace from Syria. Sirens had sounded in several towns in the southern Golan Heights amid the incident.
Early on October 20, the IDF said that a “suspicious aerial target” -likely a drone- crossed into the Golan Heights “from the east” before falling in an open area, causing no injuries.
The IRI began carrying out attacks against Israel as well as against United States forces in Iraq and neighboring Syria last October in response to the Israeli all-out war on Gaza.
In September, the group escalated its attacks against Israel in response to Israel’s ongoing aerial campaign and ground operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
While Israel has not openly responded to the IRI’s attacks yet, it was blamed for several strikes that targeted Iran-backed armed factions along the Syrian-Iraqi border and near the Syrian capital, Damascus, in recent months. Iraqi fighters and commanders were killed in some of these strikes.
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