Israel on Monday confirmed that its military has attacked Iranian targets in Syria, in a rare statement on such an operation.
“We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory. “We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory,” the military statement said.
Until now Israel largely has refrained from public admissions of its covert military operations in neighboring Syria to avoid large-scale involvement in the eight-year civil war.
The military’s statement was issued hours after Israeli missile defenses intercepted an incoming missile over the Golan Heights in the wake of rare daylight air raid near the Damascus International Airport.
The Israeli military initially had declined to comment on the airstrike, though it said a rocket fired at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
Israeli warplanes have used Lebanon’s airspace recently to strike deep inside Syria, including attacking a warehouse near Damascus International Airport earlier this month, according to Syrian state media.
The Syrian military said Israel carried out intensive airstrikes with successive waves of guided missiles shortly after 1 a.m., but added that Syrian air defenses destroyed most of the missiles before they reached their targets.
People in Damascus said they heard five explosions early Sunday afternoon, apparently the sound of air defenses firing into the air.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently confirmed that Israel had struck hundreds of targets in Syria linked to Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group, including a weapons facility two weeks ago.
Iran and Hezbollah are allied with the Syrian government in the civil war.
Two hours after the reports that Israel’s Iron Dome intercepted a rocket fired toward the Golan Heights, Netanyahu, who currently is on a visit to Chad, said in a statement: “We have a defined policy: to harm Iranian entrenchment in Syria and to harm anyone who tries to harm us.”
Earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb went off south of Damascus; the extent of the damage and any possible injuries was unclear.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which closely monitors Syria’s war, said the bomb targeted the vehicle of a “security personality” that it did not identify.
The Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said it was unclear whether the individual was killed or wounded. “It was not a random act,” he added.
Attacks have been rare in Damascus since Syrian government forces captured the last rebel-held neighborhoods and suburbs of the capital last year.
Bombings have left hundreds dead over the course of the nearly eight-year civil war.
In the northern Syrian town of Afrin, a blast aboard a bus killed at least three people and wounded nine others, the Observatory said.