Israeli fighter jets carried out airstrikes in Syria to thwart a planned attack on Israel by Iran-backed fighters using armed drones, the Israel Defense Forces said Saturday night.
The Israeli military said its strike late Saturday targeted operatives from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force as well as Shiite militias who had been planning on sending “kamikaze” attack drones into Israel armed with explosives.
“The IDF, by Israeli aircraft, was able to thwart an Iranian attempt led by the Quds force from Syria to conduct an attack on Israeli targets in northern Israel using killer drones,” military spokesman Jonathan Conricus told reporters.
Conricus said Israel had monitored the plot for several months and on Thursday prevented Iran from making an “advanced attempt” to execute the same plan. Then, Iran tried again late Saturday to carry out the same attack, he said.
According to Conricus, the Israeli attack targeted “a number of terror targets and military facilities belonging to the Quds force as well as Shiite militias.”
“This was a significant plan with significant capabilities that had been planned for a few months,” Conricus said. “It was not something done on a low level, but rather top down from the Quds Force.”
He said the Iranian attack was believed to be “very imminent.”
Conricus also noted that while Iranian forces had launched rockets and missiles at Israel from Syria three times during 2018, the use of “kamikaze” drones set to explode on their targets was a new and “different tactic.”
“The threat was significant and these killer drones were capable of striking targets with significant capacity,” he said.
The rare Israeli announcement of a strike inside Syria came minutes after Syrian state television reported air defenses were activated against hostile targets.
The SANA state news agency claimed that “most of the hostile Israeli missiles were destroyed before reaching their targets.”
“The attack was dealt with immediately and efficiently,” SANA said.
It was not immediately clear if there were casualties in the strike.
There was no immediate comment from Iran on the attack.
Conricus said Israel’s chief of staff was meeting with senior officers and forces were on high alert near the Syrian frontier. Hebrew-language media reported that an Iron Dome anti-missile battery had been deployed to northern Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Israeli strike a “major operational effort.”
Several explosions were heard in the sky over the Syrian Capital of Damascus on Saturday night, a correspondent reported.
Several explosions over Damascus were reported by a correspondent around 11:20 pm (8:20 pm GMT) local time. Minutes later SANA agency reported that Syrian air defences were repelling 'enemy targets' over the city.
Later, an Israeli military spokesman claimed that Israeli aircraft on Saturday struck Iranian forces near Damascus to prevent a drone attack on Israel.
This is not the first such instance. In July, a correspondent from the scene also reported that a series of powerful blasts had rocked the skies over Damascus. Back then, a Syrian military source reported that the missile attacks were carried out by the Israeli Air Force. Back then, the attack resulted in four people being killed and 21 more wounded, according to the local media data.
Israel has previously admitted to carrying out "hundreds" of air attacks against Syria in recent years, saying that the strikes were aimed at countering alleged Iranian and Iranian-linked presence in the war-torn country. Damascus has condemned the attacks as a blatant violation of international law. Iran has said that its presence in Syria has been limited to helping Damascus fighting terror groups.
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