Israel launches massive military strike against Iranian targets in Syria

MOUNT BENTAL, Golan Heights — Israeli warplanes bombed dozens of Iran-linked military facilities in Syria, the Israeli military said Thursday, as tensions soared after Israeli positions came under fire from a barrage of rockets fired from Syrian territory

The army said in a statement that its fighter jets targeted Iranian intelligence and logistics sites around Damascus, as well as munition warehouses, observation and military posts. A top official said the strikes hit most of Iran’s facilities in Syria.

The attacks followed a wave of overnight rocket strikes directed at Israeli positions in the Golan Heights — all of them apparently intercepted — that Israel blamed on Iran.

An Israeli military spokesman said the rockets were fired by Iran’s Quds Force, a special forces unit affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, marking the first time that Iranian forces have fired directly on Israeli troops.

From Mount Bental on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, pointed out where he said an Iranian rocket salvo was fired toward Israel just after midnight.

“We saw it was very clear what the Iranians were doing, attacking Israel from Syrian soil,” he said.

Four of the 20 rockets were on target, he added, but were then intercepted, while the rest fell short. Israel responded by hitting 70 Iran-linked sites in Syria. “This was by far the largest strike we have done, but it was focused on Iranian sites,” Conricus said.

Syrian air defenses were also struck after they fired on Israeli jets, he acknowledged.

Israel and Iran have been on a collision course in Syria, as Israel has vowed not to let Iran build a presence there and has escalated attacks against Iranian targets across the border. Iran vowed retaliation after seven of its soldiers were killed by an Israeli airstrike in April.

Analysts say President Trump’s scrapping of a landmark nuclear deal with Iran means that Tehran has less to lose by retaliating. Trump’s move Tuesday has served to embolden hard-liners in the Islamic Republic who now want to show strength. The hard-liners also opposed the nuclear deal — but on grounds that Iran was giving away too much to the world powers on the other side of the negotiation.

In a statement carried by Syria’s state news agency, an unidentified Syrian Foreign Ministry official described Israel’s overnight attacks as a “new phase of aggression.”

In Washington, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemned Iran’s “provocative rocket attacks from Syria against Israeli citizens” and supported Israel’s “right to act in self-defense.”

“The Iranian regime’s deployment into Syria of offensive rocket and missile systems aimed at Israel is an unacceptable and highly dangerous development for the entire Middle East,” Sanders said in a statement. “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bears full responsibility for the consequences of its reckless actions.” The statement called on Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah, “to take no further provocative steps.” Hezbollah, a militant Lebanese Shiite organization, has sent fighters to Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, who is also supported by Iran and Russia.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, said at least 23 people were killed in Thursday’s Israeli strikes across Syria. It said five Syrian soldiers and 18 allied militiamen died, without specifying whether any of the militiamen were Iranian. The Syrian army, however, said only three people died in the strikes and claimed that most of the Israeli missiles were intercepted.

Russia, meanwhile, issued its own analysis of the attack, saying it was carried out by 28 Israeli fighter jets firing 60 missiles and another 10 surface-to-surface missiles, with Syrian air defenses intercepting half of them.

There were no immediate statements from the Iranian government after the Israeli strikes. On Wednesday, however, Iran’s defense minister, Brig. Gen. Amir Hatami, pledged that Iran would continue to develop its missile capabilities. Hatami, speaking to officials in Tehran, made no direct mention of Israel or other nations, but cited pressures from “enemies of Iran,” according to Iran’s Fars News Agency.

Tehran’s strong support for Assad has allowed it to deepen its foothold across Syria, but Iranian media downplayed Tehran’s role in the violence, depicting the clashes instead as between Israel and Syria.

[The shadow war between Israel and Iran takes center stage]

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said the strikes targeted “almost all of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria.”

An army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ronen Menalis, said Israel could inflict much more damage if it deems further strikes necessary.

“What we did tonight is only the tip of the iceberg of the Israeli army’s capability,” he said Thursday morning on Israel Army Radio.

Among the targets that were hit were a logistics headquarters belonging to the Quds Force, a military logistics compound in Kiswah, an Iranian military compound north of Damascus, munition storage warehouses of the Quds Force at the Damascus International Airport, intelligence systems and posts associated with the Quds Force, observation and military posts and munitions in the buffer zone, the Israeli army said.

Speaking at the annual Herzliya Conference on Thursday morning, Liberman said his country’s position was clear: “We will not allow Iran to turn Syria into a front-line post against Israel.”

Air raid sirens sounded in the Golan Heights early Thursday shortly after midnight. In nearby Tiberias, on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, explosions could be heard above the music of bars entertaining busloads of tourists. The explosions were followed by sporadic fire into the early morning hours.

Israeli residents of the Golan Heights reported a restless night in bomb shelters but said that life returned to normal Thursday morning. Schools were open, and farmers continued with work as usual.

Targets belonging to the Quds Force and the Revolutionary Guard throughout Syria have taken a “significant hit,” said army spokesman Menalis. “In the next few hours they will understand very well how much we have hit them.”

Both Russia and France have called for a de-escalation of the situation.

Eglash reported from Herzliya, Israel, and Loveluck from Beirut. Suzan Haidamous in Beirut, Erin Cunningham in Istanbul and Brian Murphy and John Wagner in Washington contributed to this report.

Despite blowback over Syrian strike, Israelis say more military action needed

Israel carries out ‘large-scale attack’ in Syria after jet crashes under fire

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news