Israel targets Syrian troops
June 23, 2014
At least 10 Syrian soldiers died in a series of Israeli airstrikes overnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.
Israeli aircraft fired nine missiles targeting seven different Syrian military targets, according to the Britain-based group, which monitors Syria's civil war through a network of analysts on the ground.
The observatory, which is close to the moderate opposition in Syria, said that the airstrikes destroyed the headquarters of Syria's 90th Brigade as well as two tanks and two artillery pieces. The Syrian government has not commented on the Israeli air raid.
Retaliatory strike
Israel launched the airstrikes overnight on Sunday in retaliation for the death an Arab-Israeli teenager in a Syrian rocket attack. The 15-year-old boy was delivering water with his father in the Golan Heights, when their truck was hit by an anti-tank missile fired from the Syrian side of the border. His father, who was also injured, was a defense contractor for the Israeli military.
"We will not tolerate harm to Israeli civilians or army forces and will extract a heavy price from anyone who will try to upset our lives, whether we are talking about the Syrian army or about terrorist elements acting in Syrian territory," Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a news release on Sunday.
Significant escalation
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, the Israeli army's foreign press spokesman, said the Syrian rocket attack was deliberate. Lerner called it "the most substantial incident on the border with Syria since the beginning of the civil war," noting that it was the first time an Israeli had been killed.
Israel has launched airstrikes against targets in Syria several times since the latter country descended into civil war in 2011. Previous airstrikes targeted alleged weapons shipments to the Iranian-backed Shiite militia, Hezbollah.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and subsequently annexed the 1,200-square-kilomter (460-square-mile) territory. The annexation was never recognized by the international community.
slk/se (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)