Israel steps up attack on Iran in Syria
Conflict could drag in Hezbollah and Lebanon, with devastating effects
BEIRUT— Israeli forces unleashed a heavy bombardment against Iranian military installations in Syria on Thursday in what Israel called retaliation for an Iranian rocket barrage on its positions in the occupied Golan Heights, the most serious military confrontation between the two bitter enemies to date.
The two rivals have long fought each other through proxies, and with the new exchange each seemed to be sending a warning that a direct clash between them could swiftly escalate.
“If we get rain, they’ll get a flood,” Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned.
The scope of the attacks — which Israel called its largest in Syria since the 1973 Mideast war — raised the spectre of a full-fledged war between Iran and Israel in Syria, a conflict that could potentially drag the militant Hezbollah and Lebanon into the mix with devastating effects, although both sides appeared to signal they wanted the confrontation to remain contained, at least for now.
Israel, however, has been emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal earlier this week, and the latest escalation seemed to signal a potentially co-ordinated surge in military activity targeting Iran.
The Israeli military said Thursday it hit nearly all of Iran’s military installations in Syria in response to the overnight Iranian rocket barrage that targeted Israeli front-line military positions in the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured in the1967 Middle East war. It was the first time Israel has directly accused Iran of firing toward Israeli territory.
Iran has vowed to retaliate for repeated Israeli airstrikes targeting its forces in Syria. But it seemed to carefully calibrate its response by targeting the Golan Heights, which Israel annexed in 1981 in a move that is not internationally recognized, instead of striking Israel proper.
Tehran is wary of a wider military conflagration with Israel that could jeopardize its military achievements in Syria at a time when it is trying to salvage the international nuclear deal and may be limited in its ability to strike back.
The recent clashes reveal the difficulty both sides face in dealing with an unprecedented situation, said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po, Paris School of International Affairs.
The clashes will eventually likely lead not to further escalation, but to the “consolidation of new ‘red lines’ tacitly endorsed by Israel and Iran,” he said in an analysis written for the Carnegie Middle East Center.