The Israeli army said on Thursday it hit dozens of Iranian military targets in Syria overnight, accusing Tehran of launching rocket and missile attack towards its forces in the occupied Golan Heights.
“The (Israeli military) has struck dozens of Iranian military targets in Syria,” Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus told journalists.
He said they targeted intelligence, logistics, storage and vehicles as well as the origin of the rockets.
A Syrian radar installation was destroyed in the attack, Syrian state news agency SANA cited a military source as saying.
“This is the first time that Israel has directly accused Iran of attacking it from within Syrian territory since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011,” Al Jazeera correspondent Harry Fawcett said from Jerusalem.
It [Israeli military] also said that some of those attacking forces were met by Syrian anti-aircraft systems and that resulted in Syrian military targets being struck as well.
“The question is whether that will be a deterrent or whether it could invite further escalation from the other side now that these things are in train, accidental escalation towards further conflict is always a possibility.”
‘Destabilise the entire region’
Israel was accused of attacking an airbase near Homs province in April. In February, an Israeli F-16 fighter jet was shot down by the Syrian military while targeting what it called Iranian sites responsible for launching a drone into the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel has carried out more than a dozen strikes inside Syria in the past one year.
The two countries are still technically at war, although the border remained largely quiet for decades until 2011, when the Syrian conflict broke out.
Israeli military spokesman Conricus said that the Russians were informed prior to the attack. It is one of the largest Israeli military operations in recent years and the biggest against Iranian targets.
Moscow and Tehran are close allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has presided over a civil war for the past seven years. Over half a million Syrians have died and nearly half of the prewar population displaced.
Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Beirut, said that the move has created concerns in neighboring Lebanon after Lebanese army said that the country’s airspace was violated by Israeli fighter jets.
“Israel has been saying in the past that the Syrian government is paving the way for Iran and Hezbollah [a Lebanese Shia militia] to maintain strong military presence in the [occupied] Golan Heights not far from the border with Israel.
Ahelbarra said that any confrontation between Israel and Iran could trigger a reaction from Hezbollah [that backs President Assad].
“If that happens, then you might end up with a situation where you have different frontlines, different battlefields happening at the same time, which could further destabilise the entire region.”
