Israel’s security cabinet met Thursday evening at the IDF’s headquarters in Tel Aviv as tensions with Tehran boiled over into direct confrontation for the first time and an Iranian official warned revenge “will come.”
But Israeli officials had a warning of their own for Iran following a night of widespread Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria, launched in response to Iranian rocket fire aimed at northern Israel.
“If the Iranians look more carefully [at the situation], they’ll understand that we can hit them even more dramatically,” Public Security and Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan told Hadashot TV news ahead of the cabinet meeting. “I think they now understand the IDF’s capabilities, its intelligence abilities, our capacity to strike both Iranian [forces] and Syrian.”
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday evening that it had hit over 50 targets in Syria in its overnight strikes, including Iranian intelligence sites, logistic centers, and military bases operated by the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force.
Among the targets were also a weapons depot in the international airport in Damascus, as well as positions, observation posts, and arms placed in the buffer zone on the Israel-Syria border.
“All of the targets that we engaged were effectively destroyed,” an IDF spokesman said, causing “significant damage” to the Iranians.
The overnight exchange was the largest-ever direct clash between the Iranian forces and the IDF, and appeared to be the largest exchange involving Israel in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The extensive retaliatory raids came after Iranian forces fired some 20 rockets at northern Israeli military bases from southern Syria just after midnight. The IDF said that it suffered no casualties, either on the ground or in the air, and that no rockets fired from Syria made impact in Israeli territory. Four of the Iranian rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome and 16 fell short and landed inside Syria
Erdan said Israel has “no intention to escalate, and no desire to get to the point of a general war” with Iran.
“It’s better to manage a calculated risk now, with the potential for [war], than to deal with this in a few years, when we may find ourselves facing a possibly existential threat directed toward us from Syria. Last night we knew in every likely scenario what the IDF’s response would be and approved it ahead of time,” he added.
Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul met Russian President Vladimir Putin in 1991. “At the time, if you had asked me to list 5,000 Russians that might be the next president of Russia, he would not have made this list.
Now the man that Americans had disregarded is the key to restraining Iran in Syria and ensuring that tensions between Israel and Iran do not boil over. Why? Because Russia has invested heavily in the survival of its Syrian regime ally and hopes for stability in Syria.
Now the man that Americans had disregarded is the key to restraining Iran in Syria and ensuring that tensions between Israel and Iran do not boil over. Why? Because Russia has invested heavily in the survival of its Syrian regime ally and hopes for stability in Syria.
With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow for Victory Day celebrations, Russia now plays a key role after Washington withdrew from the Iran deal.
Netanyahu planned his Moscow trip as Trump was deciding about leaving the deal, and it was not definitely clear that Trump’s speech would come a night before the trip.
However, the Iran issue has always hung over Israel-Russia relations in the last years. Russia has successfully pursued several tracks in Syria in this regard.
Putin has warm relations with Netanyahu, and Moscow considers Israel’s air raids in Syria part of its differences with Jerusalem. Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Basher Assad, increased its role in Syria in 2015.
Criticism of Israel’s air raids by Moscow, which was very rare between 2015 and 2017, has increased.
Netanyahu planned his Moscow trip as Trump was deciding about leaving the deal, and it was not definitely clear that Trump’s speech would come a night before the trip.
However, the Iran issue has always hung over Israel-Russia relations in the last years. Russia has successfully pursued several tracks in Syria in this regard.
Putin has warm relations with Netanyahu, and Moscow considers Israel’s air raids in Syria part of its differences with Jerusalem. Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Basher Assad, increased its role in Syria in 2015.
Criticism of Israel’s air raids by Moscow, which was very rare between 2015 and 2017, has increased.
Russia also pursues a second track in Syria at the Astana peace talks alongside Iran and Turkey, discussing how to “de-escalate” the Syria conflict. Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in April of this year and in November 2017 to discuss Syria. Putin also concluded a cease-fire agreement in southern Syria in July 2017 with the US and Jordan.
Unlike Trump, who has no relations with Iran and difficult relations with Turkey, Putin is now the key to Syria. Moscow’s main interest is what it calls “stability” in Syria. That means basically not entering into new conflicts with the US and its partners in eastern Syria, Jordan and the Syrian rebels in the south, or Turkey and the rebels in the north. It also means not having Iran and Israel fight a war in Syria.
Unlike Trump, who has no relations with Iran and difficult relations with Turkey, Putin is now the key to Syria. Moscow’s main interest is what it calls “stability” in Syria. That means basically not entering into new conflicts with the US and its partners in eastern Syria, Jordan and the Syrian rebels in the south, or Turkey and the rebels in the north. It also means not having Iran and Israel fight a war in Syria.
The head of the IDF division responsible for defending the Golan Heights on Thursday praised his soldiers for their actions during overnight clashes with Iranian and Syrian forces, and warned that his unit was prepared to continue defending the border “with any means necessary.”
“We want a quiet border [with Syria], like we’ve had for more than 40 years,” said Brig. Gen. Amit Fisher, head of the 210th “Bashan” Division, in a video statement released by the army.
“Enemy forces who approach the border and try to carry out an attack against us — we’ll take care to drive them back, with any means necessary,” he said.
Though the Israel Defense Forces called for Golan Heights residents to go about their daily business on Thursday, with schools opened and farmers allowed to work their fields, the situation along the border remained tense and Israeli troops on high alert, amid concerns of another attack by Iran or its proxies in Syria.
The fighting began just after midnight, with a barrage of some 20 rockets fired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ al-Quds Force at Israeli bases along the Golan border, the army said.
None of the rockets hit their mark. Four were intercepted by the Iron Dome, the rest fell short, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
In response, the Israeli military launched a broad counterattack against Iranian positions in Syria, hitting dozens of targets across the country, including air fields, weapons caches, and command-and-control centers, the army said.
In addition to the attacks on Iranian targets, the air force also destroyed a number of Syrian air defense systems that had fired at Israeli jets.
The IDF said that it suffered no casualties, either on the ground or in the air, and that no rockets fired from Syria made impact in Israeli territory.
Fisher, who took command of the division earlier this year, lauded the cooperation during the clashes between his unit, Military Intelligence, and the nearby Iron Dome batteries, which shot down the four rockets.
“Everyone operated professionally, with great coordination, and allowed us, in a few hours of combat, to bring about the significant achievements that we wanted,” he said.
“We were able to strike significant enemy forces,” Fisher said.
In total, the Israeli strikes killed at least 23 fighters — five Syrian regime troops and 18 other allied forces — the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday.
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