Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on March 12 that it had struck two sites of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in Syria’s southern region where members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah were operating.
In a statement, the IDF said that it “holds the Syrian regime accountable for all activities which take place within its territory and will not allow for any attempted actions which could lead to the entrenchment of Hezbollah on the Syrian front.”
The strikes were carried out after “precise intelligence which incriminated the infrastructure” were gathered, the IDF added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that two SAA sites in the area of Tell al-Ahmar in the countryside of al-Qunitra governorate were struck by the IDF.
Two non-Syrian nationals were killed in the Israeli strikes, the London-based monitoring group said in a report, adding that there is no evidence confirming that the casualties were members of Hezbollah. It is important to note that the group shared false information with regard to Israeli attacks on Syria on several occasions in the past.
The Israeli strikes came hours after Hezbollah fired more than a hundred “Katyusha” rockets from its heartland in southern Lebanon at the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, targeting the headquarters of the Air and Missile Defense Command in Keila Barracks, the missile and artillery base in Yoav and several artillery sites.
Israel has significantly escalated its attacks on Syria since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, targeting mainly SAA sites and personnel of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah and other affiliated forces.
War-torn Syria has so far largely refrained from responding to Israel’s repeated attacks in order to avoid a dangerous confrontation.
