Israel has launched a large-scale rocket attack on several Iranian infrastructure targets in Syria. The strike comes after Israel accused Iranian-backed forces of firing at their frontline troops in the Golan Heights.
Israeli forces on Thursday launched one of their largest military operations in recent years, and their largest raid ever against Iranian targets.
Rockets struck “nearly all the Iranian infrastructure in Syria,” Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.
The retaliatory strike came after Israel accused Iranian forces in Syria of firing 20 rockets at Israeli frontline military positions in Golan Heights.
“They need to remember the saying that if it rains on us, it’ll storm on them,” Lieberman told a security conference. “I hope we’ve finished this episode and everyone understood.”
A series of retaliations
Israel’s military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said Iran’s Al Quds force fired the rockets at several Israeli Golan Heights bases, though he would not say how Israel determined the Iranian involvement.
The strike triggered air raid sirens in the Israeli-controlled region, which was captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day war and was annexed by Israel in 1981.
Residents spent the night in shelters, but schoolchildren went to class as normal the morning after.
The attack on the Golan Heights came one night after Syria accused Israel of striking one of its military bases south of Damascus, which the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said killed 15 people including eight Iranians.
Defense Minister Lieberman has stated his country is not prepared to allow Iran to turn Syria into a “frontline base” against Israel, adding that none of the Iranian rockets struck inside Israeli-held territory, and they either fell short or were shot down.
dm, law/rt (AP, Reuters)