Syria says Israeli strikes killed 3, damaged air defense units

Syria’s military said Thursday that Israeli airstrikes overnight had killed three people and wounded two, destroyed a radar station and an ammunition warehouse, and damaged a number of air defense units.

Israel launched the attacks in Syria in response to a barrage of rockets fired from Syrian territory that it blamed on Iranian forces.

In a statement carried by state news agency SANA, Syria’s foreign ministry said that the Israeli strikes on its territory were a “direct confrontation” that marked a “new phase” in the country’s seven-year conflict.

Syrian Arab Army Brig. Gen. Ali Mayhoub, who read a statement on Syrian television, said his country’s air defense systems had intercepted “the large part” of the incoming Israeli strikes.

Russia backed up some of the Syrian military’s claims, saying approximately half of the incoming Israeli missiles had been intercepted by Bashar Assad’s air defenses. The Russian defense ministry told local media that 28 Israeli F-15 fighter jets had fired 60 missiles and IDF ground troops had launched 10 surface-to-surface missiles at targets inside Syria.

Mayhoub did not say whether Iranian forces or Iran-backed militiamen were among those killed or wounded.

He also tied the strikes to the regime’s efforts at suppressing a seven-year-long insurgency, declaring the “futility of attempts to support the devastating terrorism by hitting the Syrian Arab Army,” according to an English translation of his comments reported by SANA.

Earlier, a Syrian war monitoring group claimed the strikes killed at least 23 fighters, including five Syrian regime troops and 18 other allied forces. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the regime troops killed in the strikes included an officer, adding that the other casualties included Syrians and foreigners.

Some 20 rockets were fired at northern Israeli military bases by Iranian forces from southern Syria just after midnight Wednesday, Israel said, prompting extensive retaliatory raids. The Israel Defense Forces 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.

The IDF said the initial missile barrage was launched by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ al-Quds Force. It appeared to be the first time Israel attributed an attack directly to Iran, which generally operates through proxies.

Israeli officials, who had repeatedly warned that the IDF would respond aggressively to any Iranian attack, ordered widespread reprisal raids, hitting Tehran-linked positions in southern, central and northern Syria.

According to the IDF, its strikes targeted the Russian-made long-range SA-5, also known as the S-200, which is the predecessor of the more advanced S-300 and S-400; the Russian high altitude SA-2, or S-75; the Russian short- to medium-range SA-22, also known as the Pantsir-S1; and the SA-17 medium-range air defense system, also known as the Buk.

Defense Minister Avidgor Liberman said the military struck “nearly all” of Iran’s military facilities in Syria.

Israel has said it is determined to prevent Iran from establishing forward bases in Syria, fearing they could be used to launch strikes against the Jewish state, and also to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah. A number of deadly airstrikes against Syrian targets that reportedly destroyed Iranian military assets have been attributed to Israel.

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’s, including a senior officer responsible for the group’s drone program.

In the days and weeks before the Iranian barrage, defense officials repeatedly warned that Israel would respond aggressively to any attack from Syrian territory.

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.