Overnight Tuesday Israel again launched a major attack on Syrian government locations near Damascus in what seems a monthly exercise that many analysts now openly recognize as an Israeli attempt to provoke war with Syria.
For at least the third time since the start of the 7-year long war in Syria, Israeli jets attacked a site just outside of Syria's capital city called Jamraya - believed to be a military research facility related to chemical weapons.
Jamraya is an area well-known for its multiple government facilities, including a branch of Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Center, which was the site of two prior attacks by Israel - one in 2013 and another in early December 2017 - but also has sprawling civilian residential areas. It lies on the opposite side of Mt. Qasioun, against which the Damascus city center is nestled.
Like with other recent attacks, Israeli jets are reported to have fired from over Lebanon, with a Syrian military media statement saying that its air defenses intercepted most of the inbound missiles, though no further details were given.
Unconfirmed international media reports, however, indicate one or more of the Israeli missiles may have impacted parts of the Syrian government facility during the strikes which occurred at 03:42 am local time Wednesday morning.
In statement picked up by Reuters the Syrian military said, "The general command of the armed forces holds Israel fully responsible for the dangerous consequences of its repeated, aggressive and uncalculated adventures."
And similar to a September 2017 strike on a military research facility in Masyaf - also said to be a chemical weapons development site, it appears Israel has timed the assault closely on the heels of recent allegations of repeat chemical attacks carried out by the Syrian government against al-Qaeda held pockets of the country - namely Idlib and East Ghouta. Though admitting "no evidence" US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis suggested last week that the Syrian Army may be using sarin gas while also alleging multiple smaller scale chlorine attacks.
Israel, however, has lately been quick to justify what Damascus has condemned as unprovoked "acts of aggression" in humanitarian terms as retribution for supposed gas attacks. Israel has long been on record as condemning Iran's presence in the region, however, Israeli leaders lately appear increasingly reliant on chemical attack claims as rationale for bombing Syrian government sites.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently stated of Iran's presence in Syria, “We will not allow a regime hell bent on the annihilation of the Jewish state to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not allow that regime to entrench itself militarily in Syria, as it seeks to do, for the express purpose of eradicating our state.”
Reading the headlines, there is a clear sense that Israel will soon enter a two-front war against Hamas in Gaza and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Statements made by senior officials, lawmakers, ministers and military personnel, one after the other, seem to be prepping their respective constituencies for such a scenario.
While tensions are rising on both fronts, it is the northern border that presents the more combustible situation and higher likelihood of actual conflict breaking out.
The IDF’s large parachute drill and Beirut’s leaks to various media outlets about its Iranian-financed underground rocket factories both create a feeling that there is serious potential for escalation along the Blue Line.
Israel has made it clear on more than one occasion that it does not intend to agree to the establishment of precision rocket factories in Lebanon.
A similar facility in Syria no longer exists, as a result of an Israeli airstrike, according to Arab media outlets.
But Iranian-backed efforts to build missiles remain in Lebanon and Yemen, where the country is backing the Houti rebels, though it officially denies this. While the Yemen concern is Saudi Arabia’s problem, efforts in Lebanon are of utmost concern to Jerusalem, and Israeli military action seems only a matter of time.
This is where Hezbollah’s response comes into play. The Shiite organization has made it clear in the past that while it may let Israeli actions in Syria pass with no more than angry denunciations, when it comes to Lebanese soil, there is no such grace.
Rather, there is a distinct possibility that an Israeli attack would invite a Hezbollah military response.
Both sides have made it clear that they are capable of causing serious damage to the other and both are right.
The question now is whether either side will choose to blink — Israel by ignoring Hezbollah’s missile factories or Hezbollah by ignoring an Israeli attack.
Things are a bit less explosive in Gaza, where, though there is a growing humanitarian crisis, war is apparently not necessarily on the horizon.
The distress there is indeed severe — apparently unprecedented, even for the coastal enclave. On Monday, three more medical clinics were closed due to electricity shortages, and more than 15 others are only functioning partially.
With the unemployment rate at roughly 46% and more than half of the population — 1 million people — requiring food aid from human rights organizations to survive the month, Gaza’s economic collapse, as Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot stated Sunday, is only a matter of time.
The endless Israeli jabbering on this issue has created a feeling in Hamas that Jerusalem might be the one to make the first military move as it has in past wars.
For this reason, Hamas headquarters have been evacuated and the terror group announced a “state of emergency” in an attempt to create as few targets as possible for the Israeli side to hit.
The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday said that it was deploying additional battalions to the West Bank as reinforcements, following a recent uptick in terror attacks that have taken place over the Green Line, as well as a manhunt for a terror suspect.
The forces will operate primarily in the northern West Bank, where the primary points of friction have been, the army said. Several battalions will also be placed on stand-by.
Hours earlier, clashes broke out between Palestinians and Israeli troops in the southern West Bank town of Halhul, as troops raided the home of the terrorist who stabbed a security guard in Gush Etzion’s Karmei Tzur settlement and then was shot dead.
On Monday, a terrorist fatally stabbed 29-year-old Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal outside the settlement of Ariel. The suspect, 19-year-old Abed al-Karim Assi, managed to flee the scene and remains at large.
On Tuesday, troops raided two homes in Nablus, including one reportedly belonging to Assi’s father, amid a large-scale manhunt for the suspect. One Palestinian was killed and 47 others were injured in ensuing clashes with IDF soldiers as they left the area, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Ben-Gal’s widow, Miriam gave a video statement on Wednesday evening, saying that retribution for her husband’s murder could only come from building their settlement of Har Bracha into a large city.
“They (the terrorists) should know that such actions only lead to the further development of the Jewish people, to the strengthening of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel,” she said.
Ben-Gal’s murder came less than a month after Raziel Shevach was gunned down by Palestinian terrorists outside the northern West Bank outpost of Havat Gilad.
On Tuesday, Israeli troops shot dead Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, the suspected ringleader of a terror cell responsible for the Israeli father of six’s murder during a pre-dawn raid in the village of Yamoun, near Jenin.
Lebanon’s top security body has instructed the country’s military to confront any Israeli “aggression” on its land or maritime borders.
The statement by the Higher Defense Council on Wednesday did not elaborate, but it comes amid escalating tensions between the two neighbors, who are technically at war.
The dispute is centered around a border wall the IDF is constructing along the boundary between the two countries, contested rights to offshore natural gas exploration, and Israeli warnings that Iran — through its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah — is turning the country into a forward base to manufacture rockets and attack the Jewish state.
On Monday, Lebanese military officials told their Israeli counterparts during face-to-face talks that the border wall violates Lebanon’s sovereign territory.
Israel has been building the obstacle — made up of a collection of berms, cliffs and concrete barriers — for a long time, but it has only now angered Beirut.
Hezbollah, a powerful terror group considered to have more military clout than the Lebanese army itself, recently threatened to open fire on IDF soldiers building the barrier, Israel’s Hadashot TV news reported last week.
The message was delivered to Jerusalem via UNIFIL, the report said. The UN force, fearing a possible escalation, passed the message on to the US and French ambassadors, who updated the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on the matter.
The Israeli government, unimpressed, responded with a threatening message of its own, the report said. Israel said it was acting in its own sovereign territory in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution adopted after Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
Israel does not intend to halt the construction, Jerusalem said, and Hezbollah will “pay dearly” if it tries to inflame tensions. “Israel’s reaction will be strong and painful,” sources in Israel’s security establishment were quoted as saying.
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