IDF Golan commander says troops will defend border ‘with any means necessary’
Brig. Gen. Amit Fisher praises overnight raids against Iranian positions in Syria, saying army’s coordination and professionalism led to ‘significant achievements’
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
The head of the IDF division responsible for defending the Golan Heights on Thursday praised his soldiers for their actions during overnight clashes with Iranian and Syrian forces, and warned that his unit was prepared to continue defending the border “with any means necessary.”
“We want a quiet border [with Syria], like we’ve had for more than 40 years,” said Brig. Gen. Amit Fisher, head of the 210th “Bashan” Division, in a video statement released by the army.
“Enemy forces who approach the border and try to carry out an attack against us — we’ll take care to drive them back, with any means necessary,” he said.
Though the Israel Defense Forces called for Golan Heights residents to go about their daily business on Thursday, with schools opened and farmers allowed to work their fields, the situation along the border remained tense and Israeli troops on high alert, amid concerns of another attack by Iran or its proxies in Syria.
The fighting began just after midnight, with a barrage of some 20 rockets fired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ al-Quds Force at Israeli bases along the Golan border, the army said.
None of the rockets hit their mark. Four were intercepted by the Iron Dome, the rest fell short, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
In response, the Israeli military launched a broad counterattack against Iranian positions in Syria, hitting dozens of targets across the country, including air fields, weapons caches, and command-and-control centers, the army said.
In addition to the attacks on Iranian targets, the air force also destroyed a number of Syrian air defense systems that had fired at Israeli jets.
The IDF said that it suffered no casualties, either on the ground or in the air, and that no rockets fired from Syria made impact in Israeli territory.
Fisher, who took command of the division earlier this year, lauded the cooperation during the clashes between his unit, Military Intelligence, and the nearby Iron Dome batteries, which shot down the four rockets.
“Everyone operated professionally, with great coordination, and allowed us, in a few hours of combat, to bring about the significant achievements that we wanted,” he said.
“We were able to strike significant enemy forces,” Fisher said.
In total, the Israeli strikes killed at least 23 fighters — five Syrian regime troops and 18 other allied forces — the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday.
The monitor said the regime troops killed in the strikes included an officer, adding that the other casualties included Syrians and foreigners.
It didn’t say whether any Iranians were among the foreigner casualties.
Syria’s military denied the Observatory’s report, saying the Israeli airstrikes killed three people and wounded two others, destroyed a radar station and an ammunition warehouse, and damaged a number of air defense units.
Russia’s defense ministry said Israel’s strikes on Syria saw 28 planes take part in raids with a total of around 70 missiles fired.
“28 Israeli F-15 and F-16 aircraft were used in the attack, which released around 60 air-to-ground missiles over various parts of Syria. Israel also fired more than 10 tactical ground-to-ground missiles,” the ministry said, in a statement quoted by the Interfax news agency.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said that the IDF had destroyed “nearly all” of Iran’s military infrastructure sites in Syria.
The overnight exchange was the largest-ever direct clash between the Iranian and Israeli militaries, and appeared to be the largest exchange involving Israel in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
In the days and weeks before the Iranian barrage, defense officials repeatedly warned that Israel would respond aggressively to any attack from Syrian territory.
Tehran has repeatedly vowed revenge after the T-4 army base in Syria was struck in an air raid — widely attributed to Israel — on April 9, killing at least seven members of the IRGC, including a senior officer responsible for the group’s drone program. In February, Iran launched a drone carrying explosives into Israel from T-4.
AFP and TOI staff contributed to this report.
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