In an unusual move, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that Israeli aircraft had struck a number of targets in Syria over the weekend. Israeli generally declines to confirm or deny reports of airstrikes attributed to its military.
The Syrian state news agency reported Friday that Israeli warplanes fired a number of missiles toward the Damascus area, triggering Syrian air defenses that intercepted most of them.
"The results of the aggression so far were limited to a strike on one of the warehouses at Damascus airport," the SANA news agency cited a Syrian military source as saying. The attack took place at 11:15 p.m. it said.
In a formal farewell to outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, Netanyahu said: "We've worked together with impressive success to stop Iran from gaining a military foothold in Syria. The IDF has attacked hundreds of times.
"Just in the past 36 hours the IDF struck Iranian targets in Damascus, proving we are more determined than ever to take action against Iran in Syria," Netanyahu told Eizenkot, who was in attendance.
Netanyahu said the strikes targeted Iranian warehouses in Damascus.
Syrian state media broadcast footage of what it said were the air defenses firing, with bright lights seen shooting across the night sky. Explosions were heard in one of the videos.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said airstrikes targeted an area near the airport while others hit the area of Kiswa, which is home to positions and storage sites for Iranian and Hezbollah forces allied with Syria's government.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said the attack was broader than usual, targeting areas ranging from the eastern Damascus suburb of Dmeir to the village of Dimas in the west near the Lebanon border.
Israel has mounted attacks in Syria as part of its effort to counter the influence carved out there by Iran, which has supported Syrian President Bashar Assad in the civil war that erupted in 2011.
The last Israeli attack reported by Syrian state media was on Dec. 25, when a missile attack wounded three Syrian soldiers.
Israel has struck thousands of targets in Syria "without claiming responsibility or asking for credit," outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot told the New York Times in an interview published this weekend.
Iranian and Iran-backed proxies including Lebanon's Hezbollah have deployed across Syria in support of Assad's government during the war.
