Israel Hits Hezbollah Arms Convoy in Syria
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Air Force reportedly attacked a Syrian army position and a Hezbollah weapons convoy, according to reports originating in Arab media.
The reported attacks took place early Wednesday morning along the highway connecting Damascus and Beirut, and required the military airplanes to fly in Lebanese airspace.
SANA, the official news agency of the regime of President Bashar Assad, reported Wednesday in an article headlined “Israeli enemy’s air force fires two rockets on Damascus western countryside,” that there were no casualties in the attack, which it called “an attempt to divert attention from the successes achieved by the Syrian Arab army.”
The article did not mention the alleged attack on the Hezbollah weapons convoy.
The article cited an unnamed source as saying that the attacks are “a ‘desperate attempt’ by the Israeli occupation entity to raise the deteriorating morals of the Takfiri terrorist gangs after the heavy losses they have suffered in many areas, especially in the western countryside of Damascus.”
The Israel Defense Forces, as is its standard practice, has neither confirmed nor denied the reports, saying that it does not respond to foreign media reports.
The alleged attack comes three days after the Israeli Air Force struck an Islamic State-affiliated group in Syria, killing four of its members, hours after the group fired on Israeli soldiers across the border in the Golan Heights.
It was reportedly the first clash between Israel and the Islamic State. Most mortars and gunfire on Israel from Syria have been accidental spillover from the internal fighting. The IDF has responded to those with return fire.
The tension between Syria and Israel comes amid renewed fighting in the area between rebel forces and the army of Syrian President Bashar Assad in a more than five-year civil war.
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