FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Israelis Launch New Air Strikes In Syria
Dec. 26, 2018 (EIRNS)—On Dec. 25, just days after Trump announced he was ordering the withdrawal of U.S. troops from eastern Syria, Israeli jets carried out a series of air strikes on a military depot in the town of Qatana, about 15 km south of Damascus. According to Syria’s official news agency SANA, the strikes were launched from Israeli warplanes flying over Lebanon and the Syrian military claimed that it had shot down most of the Israeli missiles, thus “affirming that the damages of the aggression were limited to a munition warehouse and the injury of three soldiers.” A military source told Al Masdar News, however, that the Israeli strike caused “significant damage” to the facility.
The Israelis, as usual, have not acknowledged the strike, but did report that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) air defenses had been activated against a Syrian anti-aircraft missile that was heading towards Israel. The Times of Israel quotes Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, saying that it indeed was an Israeli strike. “Missiles fired from Israeli planes targeted arms depots southwest and south of Damascus that belong to Hezbollah or Iranian forces,” he said. The Times further cites news reports tying the strike to the earlier arrival of an Iranian 747 cargo jet in Damascus which landed at about 7 p.m. (16:00 UTC). The 747 itself was unharmed and was on its way back to Tehran by midnight.
Newsweek, citing a U.S. Defense Department source with access to Israeli senior military officers with direct knowledge of the attack, reports that several leaders of Hezbollah were targetted in the attack, along with crates of Iranian GPS-guided munitions that were intended for Hezbollah. This is all unconfirmed, however.
In Moscow, Gen. Maj. Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, charged that the Israeli action put at risk two civilian airliners that were flying in the area at the time of the air strikes.
Provocative actions of the Israeli Air Force on the evening of Dec. 25, when six F-16 aircraft launched an airstrike on the territory of Syria from the airspace of neighboring Lebanon, created a direct threat to two passenger aircraft,”
he said, reported Sputnik. According to Konashenkov, the attack was being launched at the time when the two civilian aircraft were landing at the airports of Beirut and Damascus. He specified that the two passenger planes did not belong to Russian carriers.
Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the attack and called on the international community and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to join them in this.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry wrote a letter to the UN requesting action against Israel. It said, “Israel’s continuous aggressive policy is possible due to the unlimited and consistent support of the American administration,” and stated that Israel’s attacks lengthen the conflict by raising the morale of the terrorists opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
