Zionazis resume airstrikes on Syria

Muhammad Amin

Israeli warplanes have bombed over a dozen sites around Syria’s southern Deraa Governorate, and have now turned their crosshairs on Damascus that they bombed Thursday.

These are the latest strikes targeting the ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s government’s military infrastructure since extremist militants took over the country.

Two Syrian security sources told Reuters that at least six strikes hit a base in the town of Jbab, while at least another eight hit a former army base in the city of Izraa. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Israeli military claimed it hit targets whose “presence … poses a threat to the State of Israel and IDF operations” to “eliminate future threats.”

Israeli fighter jets hit “radar systems and detection equipment used to build an aerial intelligence picture,” along with “headquarters and military sites containing weapons and military equipment belonging to the Syrian regime in southern Syria,” the military added.

Since extremist militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took power in Damascus in December, Israel has bombed Syrian military infrastructure and weapons while illegally occupying additional Syrian territory as part of a so-called “zone of control” that includes the strategic Mount Hermon.

During a visit to a new Israeli military outpost on the mountain on Tuesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened Syria’s new president, HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa.

“Every morning when [Syrian leader] Julani (Ahmad al-Sharaa) opens his eyes at the presidential palace in Damascus, he will see the IDF watching him from the peak of the Hermon, and remember that we are here and in the entire security area of southern Syria, to protect the Golan and Galilee residents against any of his threats and those of his jihadist friends,” Katz said.

“The IDF is prepared to stay in Syria for an unlimited amount of time. We will hold the security area in Hermon and make sure that all the security zones in southern Syria are demilitarized and clear of weapons and threats,” he added.

During the US-backed clandestine war to topple the Syrian government in 2011, Israel covertly supported HTS (then known as the Nusra Front) with weapons and funding.

The Israeli military also carried out several airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least two people.

An Israeli drone hit a vehicle with a guided missile in Wadi Faroun on Tuesday afternoon – followed by a second strike less than 15 minutes later. At least one person was killed.

Around two hours earlier, an Israeli drone launched a raid on a car on the Rumin-Wadi Deir al-Zahrani road, killing at least one person,