BICOM

Syria yesterday accused Israel of carrying out air strikes against two targets, both thought to be military facilities.

Media reports say that local residents reported as many as ten explosions during Sunday. The Syrian state news agency SANA said that “the Israeli enemy’s sinful aggression” did not cause any casualties, but hit a target close to Damascus International Airport and another site at Dimas, situated north of Damascus but close to the Lebanese border. The Syrian military command said that the air strikes prove “Israel’s direct involvement in supporting terror in Syria, along with other Arab and regional countries.”

Israel has been careful not to become involved in the Syrian Civil War, although the fighting has at times encroached on the border between Israel and Syria. There was no comment yesterday from Israeli officials. During yesterday’s weekly cabinet meeting, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke only in the most general of terms, saying that Israel “is following the Middle East and what is happening very closely,” and that, “We will continue to keep our fingers on the pulse and we will deal with these threats and these challenges.”

However, Israel has repeatedly warned that any attempt to transfer sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah, particularly missiles and advanced anti-aircraft equipment, would be met with a response. Hezbollah unleashed an arsenal of rockets against northern Israeli communities during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Media reports suggest that yesterday’s strikes targeted Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles heading for Hezbollah.

Although Israel has never confirmed taking military action against weapons transfers to Hezbollah, reports claim that Israel has done so on several occasions to prevent such a scenario. In November 2013, a shipment of Russian-made SA-125 missiles was reportedly stopped in its tracks at Latakia. Several months earlier, a convoy of trucks carrying sophisticated Russian-made anti-aircraft weaponry and equipment was widely reported to have been destroyed by Israel. Israel remained similarly silent over a 2007 airstrike which is thought to have destroyed a nascent Syrian nuclear facility.