Israeli planes pound Iranian army bases after rocket attacks
ISRAELI fighter jets launched a blistering attack on Iran-linked military sites in Syria yesterday in the country’s biggest assault since the start of the civil war.
The air strikes came after Iran fired 20 rockets at military positions in Israeli-held territory for the first time.
The assaults also came hours after Donald Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal, sparking fury from European German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson slammed the Iranian onslaught.
‘The United Kingdom condemns in the strongest terms the Iranian rocket attacks against Israeli forces,’ he said. ‘We strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself. We urge Iran to refrain from further actions which will only lead to increased instability in the region. It is crucial to avoid any further escalations, which would be in no one’s interest.’
Tensions spiralled yesterday as a salvo of Iranian rockets was fired at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 50 kilometres from Damascus, just after midnight. Israel responded by bombing dozens of Iran-linked military facilities in Syria.
Last night, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran had ‘crossed a red line’. He added: ‘We are in the midst of a protracted battle and our policy is clear: We will not allow Iran to entrench itself militarily in Syria.’
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said it had struck 70 Iranian targets, causing significant damage.
The Israeli Defence Force said its fighter jets targeted Iranian intelligence and logistics sites around Damascus, as well as munition warehouses and military posts. It was also forced to hit Syrian air defence systems after they fired at the jets despite an Israeli ‘warning’. Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman said the IDF had ‘hit almost all of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria’. He said: ‘They must remember that if it rains here [in Israel], it will pour there.’
The Syrian Observatory monitoring group reported that at least 23 people were killed in the Israeli strikes, including five Syrian soldiers and 18 other allied fighters.
Russia, which backs Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime, said more than half of Israel’s missiles were shot down.
Lt Col Conricus said four of the 20 Iranian rockets were on target, but were intercepted. Israel’s response was ‘by far the largest strike we have done,’ he added.
Israel and Iran appear to be on a collision course in Syria, with Israel determined not to let Iran build a presence in the troubled part of the Middle East.
Iran vowed retaliation after seven of its troops were killed in an Israeli strike last month.
In a statement reported by Syria’s state news agency, an unidentified Syrian foreign ministry official described Israel’s attacks as a ‘new phase of aggression’.
In Washington, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemned Iran’s ‘provocative rocket attacks from Syria against Israeli citizens’ and supported Israel’s ‘right to act in self-defence’.
On Wednesday, Iran hit out at US president after Mr Trump tore up the nuclear deal. Politicians in Iran burned the US flag and a copy of the agreement as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared that Mr Trump’s body ‘will turn to ashes’.
He also warned that he didn’t ‘trust’ the other signatories to the deal.
Mr Trump pulled the plug on the 2015 agreement on Tuesday, describing it as ‘the worst deal ever’.
The move was greeted with dismay by European leaders, who have lobbied the US president to keep the accord, which reduces economic sanctions on Iran in return for a freeze in the development of nuclear material. Britain has urged the US to come up with a new deal.
‘If it rains here, it will pour there’