Israel targets ‘Iranian’ military installations in Syria

Israeli fighter jets attacked parts of western Syria yesterday on a military site in the Masyaf countryside. A military source said in a statement to Syrian news agency SANA that a “military site in Masyaf in Hama countryside was targeted by an Israeli aerial aggression, causing only material damage”.

The source said that the “aggression is an attempt to cover up for the collapse of terrorist organisations in Daraa and Quneitra provinces, as the Syrian Arab Army advances to end the presence of terrorism in the southern region”.

The source accused Israel of “helping terrorist organisations either through direct interference or by providing them with logistic support, weapons and intelligence.”

There was no comment from Israel but sources in the country speculated that the strike was related to Iran as it came just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that he was continuously acting against Iran’s military activities in Syria.

Read: Israel to move against Iran’s presence in Syria

“We will not stop taking action in Syria against Iran’s attempts to establish a military presence there,” he said in a statement from his office.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the air strike and said it targeted a “workshop supervised by Iranians where surface-to-surface missiles are made.”

“Iranian forces and forces from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement are deployed in that sector,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Israel has carried out numerous raids inside Syria since 2017, targeting regime forces and their allies from Iran and Hezbollah.

Read: 9 pro-regime fighters killed in Israeli strike on Syria