An Israeli F-35I takes off from Uvda airbase last year
TEL AVIV: Israel launched its largest military strike in years against Syria last night shortly after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported a significant increase in Iran’s stockpiles of nuclear material, with levels of enriched uranium now 12 times those agreed in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The Israelis used gliding bombs and “other weapons” to destroy eight targets from the Golan Heights to Damascus, including an Iranian military complex near Damascus International Airport, a military site which acts as a housing complex for senior Iranian officials, as a command post for Division 7 of the Syrian army and trucks which acted as launchers for advanced surface-to-air missiles.
Israeli sources told BD the Hot Line between Tel Aviv and Moscow was used to warn the Russians “seconds before it began.”
“IDF warplanes attacked military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds Force and the Syrian army tonight (Nov. 17) in Syria. The attack damaged warehouses, command posts and military complexes, and batteries of surface-to-air missiles,” the IDF said in a statement.
To get a clear idea as to why Israel acted, sources here say that the tension between Israel and Iran has reached a peak as Teheran gave the order to expedite the uranium enrichment process that brought them “inches from the bomb,” as one source said.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported that Syrian air defenses intercepted the “Israeli aggression” in the south of the country and destroyed a number of missiles. Israeli sources say the Syrians unsuccessfully used their Pantsir air defense systems to neutralize the stand-off weapon systems used by the Israeli Air Force.
Amos Gilead, former who was head of the IDF’s intelligence research division, told BD that Syria lets Iran operate in its territory “Israel has to do everything to avoid an even larger presence in Syria . And that will result in similar attacks if Syria will not understand the message.”
The Israeli military is not expecting any response to the strikes, but the Iron Dome anti-missile system has been deployed to the north, and ground troops are on heightened alert.
Is this the beginning of a larger escalation? Israeli sources told BD that Iran’s violations of the nuclear agreement make an Israeli massive operation “very imminent.”
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