Israel has unleashed a barrage of aerial attacks across Syria, battering key military sites amid a security vacuum after opposition forces ousted President Bashar al-Assad.Near the port city of Latakia, Israel targeted an air defence facility and damaged Syrian naval ships as well as military warehouses. In and around the capital, Damascus, strikes targeted military installations, research centres and the electronic warfare administration.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a war monitor, said Israel had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria, including Syrian airports and their warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and many weapons and ammunition depots in various locations in most Syrian governorates”.
Israel, which borders Syria, sent troops into a buffer zone on the east of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after al-Assad’s fall, in what Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described as a “limited and temporary step” for “security reasons”. It has also carried out “about 300 air strikes on Syrian territory” over the last 48 hours with the aim of destroying the former regime’s military capabilities, according to SOHR.
Israel media, quoting a senior security source, described the attacks as the largest air operation carried out by its Air Force in its history.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday confirmed that the military had hit several Syrian naval vessels in overnight strikes.
“The [Israeli military] has been operating in Syria in recent days to strike and destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel. The navy operated last night to destroy the Syrian fleet with great success,” Katz said during a visit to a naval base in the northern city of Haifa.He also stated that he ordered Israel’s forces to create a “sterile defence zone” in southern Syria that would be enforced without a permanent Israeli presence.Katz did not elaborate but said the zone would “prevent the establishment and organisation of terror in Syria”.
Israel’s attacks on Syria are systematic. They are aiming to destroy Syria’s defence bases.
Israel’s latest raids targeted three major airports – in Homs, Qamishli and Damascus – as well as weapons depots and other strategic military sites.
“Israel claims it is doing this because it is concerned that these strategic facilities and military equipment could fall into the hands of the opposition,” said Serdar.
There was no immediate reaction from Syria’s incoming Salvation Government, which al-Assad’s Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali agreed on Monday to hand power to.