Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
Early on March 31, the Israel Defense Forces announced that one of its fighter jets intercepted “a suspicious aerial target” that was making its way into Israel from Syria.
The target was not detected as having crossed into Israeli territory, the IDF said in a brief statement, without providing any further details on the incident.
Later, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella group of Iranian-backed armed factions, announced that it launched late on March 30 a drone attack against a “vital target” near the settlement of Eilabun in northern Israel. In a statement, the IRI said that the attack was carried out in support of Gaza and in response to Israel’s “massacres” against Palestinian civilians in the Strip.
The aerial target intercepted by the IDF on the front with Syria was most likely the suicide drone launched by the IRI at Eilabun.
This was the IRI’s sixth attack against Israel in the past ten days. On March 21, the group announced an attack against a power plant in Tel Aviv and on March 24 it said that it had targeted the headquarters of the Israeli Defense Ministry, the HaKirya, in the central Israeli city.
On March 26, the IRI announced an attack on Ovda Air Base in southern Israel. The next day, March 27, another attack against an IDF base dubbed “Spear” was announced. Moreover, on March 29, the group said that it struck a target in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
All recent attacks were apparently carried out using suicide drones, specifically a type that is thought to be made in Iran and is commonly known as Shahed-101.
The IRI began launching attacks against Israel as well as against United States forces in Iraq and neighboring Syria on October 17 in response to the war on Gaza -which broke out just ten days earlier- and Washington’s unwavering support for it.
Last February, the group suspended attacks against U.S. forces after the death of three American troops in a drone strike on a base in Jordan, reportedly upon a request from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Nevertheless, it escalated attacks against Israel this month.
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