Click to see full-size image. By the Israeli Air Force.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on November 10 that it had carried out strikes in Syria in response to a drone attack that targeted Israel’s southernmost city of Eilat a day earlier.
In a statement, the IDF said that it had targeted the organization that launched the drone, without specifying who was behind the attack, where it originated or what the IDF hit.
“The IDF holds the Syrian regime fully responsible for every terror activity emanating from its territory,” the statement reads. “We will respond to every aggression against Israel.”
Syrian activists said that several blasts rocked the outskirts of the central city of Homs and didn’t report any losses. However, the official Syrian Arab News Agency didn’t confirm that the blasts were the result of Israeli strikes.
The drone attack was the first successful strike on Eilat since the war between Hamas and Palestinian armed factions in the Gaza Strip broke out on October 7. The attack damaged a school building without causing any casualties. An Iranian-made Shahed-101 suicide drone was reportedly used.
The attack took place less than a day after a series of Israeli strikes targeted military positions in southern Syria causing material losses only.
Israel has escalated its attacks on Syria significantly since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Strikes attributed to Israel have hit Aleppo and Damascus airports several times in the past month. In addition, Israel said it had responded with artillery fire to a number of indirect fire attacks from southern Syria that targeted the occupied Golan Heights.
Syria refrained from responding to recent Israeli attacks to avoid a wider escalation. Nevertheless, the drone attack on Eilat suggests that Damascus’ patient may be about to reach its breaking point.
