Israeli military aircraft came under Russian anti-aircraft fire over Syria in May in an isolated incident, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Tuesday. The anti-aircraft fire missed its target.
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Gantz's disclosure came amid tensions between Israel and Russia over the former's condemnation of the Ukraine war and the latter's steps to shut down the local branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Having helped Damascus turn the tide of a more than decade-old civil war, Russian forces in Syria regularly turn a blind eye to airstrikes attributed to Israel against suspected Iranian-sponsored deployments and arms transfers.
But on Tuesday, Channel 13 News reported that on May 13, a Russian-operated S-300 air defense battery fired on Israeli jets as they carried out a Syria sortie, without hitting any.
"It was a one-off incident," Gantz told a conference hosted by Channel 13, when asked to confirm the report. The Russian launch happened when the aircraft "were no longer around," he said.
The Russian Embassy in Israel did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Israel's coordination with Russia over Syria is "a situation that is stable right now, I think," Gantz said. "But we are always reviewing this story as if we only just began it now."
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