IDF: Hezbollah, Syria tried to attack Israel on Election Day
An investigation into an attempted attack on Israel’s third election day has found that Hezbollah operatives worked with Syrian army soldiers to carry out the attack from the Golan Heights.
The operational and intelligence inquiry into the thwarted attack near the village of Hader in the province of Quneitra found that Hezbollah attempted to attack IDF troops from a Syrian military compound in the demilitarized zone in the Northern Golan Heights.
On March 2 the Israel Air Force struck a vehicle killing one man believed to be a Hezbollah operative. Syria’s SANA news agency reported that Israel struck Syrian government forces, injuring three regime soldiers and killing one civilian.
In the weeks leading up to the thwarted attack, the military said that troops from the Yahmam field intelligence troops and field observers from the 595th field intelligence battalion had identified suspicious movements by Hezbollah fighters and Syrian soldiers in sensitive locations in the area “which indicated the planning of an attack,” the IDF said, explaining that the operatives were seen filming the border with smartphones and professional cameras as well as measuring wind-speed and more.
“When there was an operational opportunity, the car being used by the cell was attacked by an IDF helicopter,” the military said in a statement. “The IDF has an ongoing campaign against the Hezbollah terror organization on the Golan Heights and acts by various means to thwart terrorist attacks on the State of Israel. The State of Israel sees Syria, the sovereign, as responsible for all that happens in its territory,” the IDF said.
Pictures from the scene showed the white truck in flames, completely destroyed in the strike.
The investigation was led by the head of the IDF’s Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Amir Baram, IDF Bashan Division, Brig.-Gen. Amit Fisher and other senior commanders.
“Even on election day our enemies try to harm us,” Defense
Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement at the time. “This day too, as on every day, we will cut off the hands of the enemy and not allow them to hinder our daily lives.”
The skirmish was the latest in a series of cross-border strikes against Hezbollah operatives in the demilitarized buffer zone between the two enemy countries. In February, Hezbollah operative Emad al-Tawil was killed in a drone strike near Hadar in an attack blamed by Israel. In July Mashour Zidan, a resident of the Druze village of Hader in the Syrian Golan Heights, was killed after an IED planted in his car exploded as he was driving near the Syrian town of Sasa in southern Syria.
Senior intelligence officers in the IDF’s Northern Command said that Hezbollah’s Golan Project
began last summer following the reconquering of the Syrian Golan by regime troops.
The Golan Project has its headquarters in Damascus and the Lebanese capital of Beirut there are tens of operatives operating in the Syrian towns of Hadar, Quneitra and Erneh who collect intelligence on Israel and military movement on the Israeli Golan Heights.
According to the IDF, the Hezbollah terrorists involved in the clandestine project focus on familiarizing themselves with the Syrian Golan Heights and on gathering intelligence on Israel and the border area. They are also working to establish intelligence gathering capabilities against Israel, operating from civilian observation posts and regime military positions near the border.
Operatives involved in the clandestine file have weaponry available from the civil war and if needed, will receive additional weaponry from Lebanon or existing arsenals kept by Hezbollah and Iran.
The IDF believes that the next war on the northern border will not be contained to one front, but along the entire northern border with both Lebanon and Syria. The military also expects that during the next war Hezbollah will try to bring the fight to the home front by infiltrating Israeli communities to inflict significant civilian and military casualties.