The air strike early Wednesday morning near the Damascus airport is the second attack in Syria attributed to Israel within a week. In addition to the reports to this effect in the Arab media, there have been official claims by the Syrian regime and Hezbollah, although these didn’t have a particularly emotional tone.

Most of the attention on Wednesday was generated by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s address to EU diplomats only hours after the attack. He explained that Israel always seeks to protect its citizens, and also to prevent the smuggling of sophisticated weapons and weapons of mass destruction from Syria to Hezbollah.

This is the same policy and the same red lines that Israel marked with regard to the Syrian civil war five years ago. But Lieberman’s forceful wording led to headlines that practically had Israel taking official responsibility (something Israel prefers not to do with regard to attacks of this kind). In addition, it looked like a direct reference to the smuggling of chemical weapons, although nothing of this nature has been reported since the dismantling of most of Syria’s arsenal of such weapons in 2013.

Another question relates to the degree to which Russia knew of or was involved in the attacks. Hezbollah and of course the Syrian army are part of the Russian-led military alliance defending the regime in Damascus. At the same time, the Russians have a mechanism for preventing confrontations with the Israeli air force in the Syrian arena. If the claims by Syria and Hezbollah that it was Israel which hit the weapons warehouses are correct, did Russia know about the strikes in advance and turn a blind eye, or was it as surprised by the bombings as the others?

Read the full article in Haaretz