Israel Strikes Syrian Territory

Israeli aircraft struck alleged Syrian army artillery positions early on Wednesday, the Israeli military said, the latest in a series of Israeli airstrikes on Syrian territory.

The strike came one day after rockets were launched at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and ten days after an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian city of Quneitra killed six fighters of Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah, including a commander and the son of assassinated senior commander Imad Mughniyeh, as well as Iranian Revolutionary Guards General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi.

The airstrike on “targets” in areas under the control of the Syrian army “sent a clear message,” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement.

“We will not tolerate any firing towards Israeli territory or violation of our sovereignty and we will respond forcefully and with determination,” Yaalon added.

On Tuesday, at least two rockets from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Israel responded with artillery fire, the army said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket fire and no casualties were reported.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967, then annexed it in 1981 in a move never recognized by the international community.

Quneitra is located in the “demilitarized” zone of the Golan Heights. The zone is supposedly monitored by UN peacekeepers since 1974, but has been a site of heavy clashes between the Syrian army and jihadist groups.

Damascus has repeatedly accused so-called “rebel groups” such Syria’s al-Qaeda branch, al-Nusra Front, who are active in the southern Quneitra countryside, of working hand in glove with Israel, from which they allegedly receive logistic support.

On Monday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the Israelis were supporting “rebel groups” in Syria.

“They [the Israelis] are supporting the rebels in Syria. It’s very clear. Because whenever we make advances in some place, they make an attack in order to undermine the army. It’s very clear. That’s why some in Syria joke: ‘How can you say that al-Qaeda doesn’t have an air force? They have the Israeli air force,’” Assad said in an interview with Foreign Affairs magazine.

In the past year, Israel has carried out a number of raids allegedly aiming at key Syrian targets and positions of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, an ally of both the Syrian government and Iran.

In December, the Syrian government accused Israel of launching a series of airstrikes on the outskirts of Damascus, saying the strikes caused material damage to institutions in the area.

The Syrian foreign ministry said at the time it had asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Israel, describing the strikes as “a heinous crime against Syria’s sovereignty.”

Observers from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) confirmed in a report published in December that the Israeli army was cooperating with militant groups in Syria.

The report revealed ongoing communication between armed groups’ leaders and Israeli army officers, saying that “59 meetings took place from March 2013 to May, and that during this same period 89 injured militants were transported to Israeli hospitals, and 19 of them were returned to Syria along with two bodies.”

The attack on January 18 came days came days after Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel against any “stupid” moves in Lebanon and Syria, vowing to retaliate and make sure Israel pays the price for any aggression against the neighboring countries.

Israeli airstrikes on Syria “target the whole of the resistance axis,” Nasrallah said in reference to Syria, Iran and his government, who are sworn enemies of Israel.

“The repeated bombings that struck several targets in Syria are a major violation, and we consider that any strike against Syria is a strike against the whole of the resistance axis, not just against Syria,” he said, adding the “axis is capable of responding” anytime.

Since the airstrike, troops and civilians in northern Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine and the occupied Golan Heights have been on heightened alert and Israel has deployed an Iron Dome rocket interceptor unit near the Syrian border.

Last October, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for detonating a bomb that targeted an Israeli tank near the Sadan Israeli military post in the Israeli-occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms.

The group said in a statement at the time that the attack was carried out by the “martyr Ali Hassan Haidar unit,” which is named for a Hezbollah member killed on September 5, when an Israeli spying device in Lebanon was detonated remotely as he tried to dismantle it.

The last Israeli war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

Nasrallah is expected to deliver a speech on February 2nd regarding the Israeli strikes.

Iran: We Will Respond

Meanwhile, Iran has told the United States that last week’s air strike crossed “red lines” and it will respond, IRNA news agency on Tuesday quoted a senior official as saying.

“We have sent a message to the United States through diplomatic channels telling the Americans that the Zionist regime crossed Iran’s red lines by this action,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

“In this message, we said those responsible should wait to suffer the consequences of their act,” he added, in remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency.

Amir-Abdollahian was speaking on the sidelines of a memorial service for Allahdadi also attended by General Ghassem Souleimani, head of the Guards’ elite Quds Force, which is responsible for operations outside Iran.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she would not comment on or confirm what she called “private diplomatic communications” although she did not directly deny that the Iranians had made such a request.

“We absolutely condemn any such threats that come in any form, and we continue to strongly support Israel’s safety and security,” Psaki told reporters.

She also dismissed any notion that any such message by Iran was made during bilateral talks with the US last week in Switzerland.

“As we’ve said before, the only issue that is being discussed within the talks concerns Iran’s nuclear program. So you can assume that was not a channel in this case,” she said.

Last week, Iran’s defense minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said “this action of Zionists will not be left without a response. The important thing is the question of the time and place of this response.”

And Mohsen Rezaie, secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, added Hezbollah would eventually retaliate against “this recent atrocity,” but that the group was “prudent and has a long term plan and will not be infuriated.”