The Israeli army announced today that it had targeted Syrian air defense arrays after launching a surface-to-air missile in the direction of Israel. Earlier, Syrian state media reported that there had been a series of Israeli rocket attacks around the Syrian capital, Damascus.
An Israeli army spokesman declined to comment on the initial attack in Damascus, which according to Syrian media killed one soldier and wounded five others.
However, the Israeli army confirmed that it had retaliated after launching an anti-aircraft missile, which triggered air defense sirens in parts of Israel and in the occupied West Bank. The rocket exploded in the air.
“After launching an anti-aircraft missile earlier (…) we attacked arrays of surface-to-air missiles and radar that opened fire on Israeli Air Force aircraft,” he said via Twitter.
Earlier, Syrian state television reported that anti-aircraft missiles had shot down several Israeli missiles over Damascus.
Israel fired surface-to-surface missiles from the occupied Golan Heights, most of which were intercepted and shot down, according to the same source.
There was also an “Israeli attack” with rockets fired from an area southeast of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, according to Syrian state television.
Since the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes, almost entirely from the air, against positions of the Syrian government’s armed forces and their allies, Iranian and pro-Iranian militias, mainly the Shiite militant group Hezbollah. The Israeli authorities regularly say that they will not allow Iran, a sworn enemy of the Jewish state, to build a bridgehead on Syrian territory.
The war in Syria has claimed the lives of more than half a million people, wreaked havoc on infrastructure and uprooted millions of civilians who have been displaced and displaced.
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