Click to see full-size image. By the Israeli Air Force.
Two waves of Israeli strikes have hit Syria’s southern region, reportedly targeting an air defense base and a radar station.
Citing a Syrian military source, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported late on December 28 that strikes launched from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights had targeted several positions it did not identify in the southern region.
“Our air defenses confronted the [Israeli] aggressors’ missiles and downed some of them with only material losses,” the Syrianmilitary source said.
Later, a Syrian military source was quoted by the SANA as saying Israel staged another round of strikes early on December 28 near the capital, Damascus, but gave no details.
A Syrian military intelligence source and another regional security official familiar with the matter told Reuters that the Israeli strikes targeted a Syrian air defense base and a radar station in the Tell al-Sahn area in the southeastern countryside of Suwayda.
Israel escalated its attacks on Syria significantly since the outbreak of the war with the Hamas Movement and other Palestinian armed factions in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this week, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigade General Seyed Razi Mousavi, was killed when a strike attributed to Israel hit his home in the town of Set Zaynab to the south of Damascus. Tehran vowed that it will respond to the assassination.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes against Syria in recent years, often targeting Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations. The war-torn country has largely refrained from responding to Israel’s repeated attacks in an attempt to avoid more escalation.
Several reports from earlier this year alleged that the country was working with Iran to improve its air defenses in order to stop Israel’s repeated attacks.
