Gili Cohen
Hours after Israel's rare strike in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that, "If anyone tries to hurt us, we’ll hurt them." What was defined by the Israeli army as a Syrian provocation in the morning had become a chance to reinforce Israel’s red lines by the afternoon.
Monday’s unusual incident between Syria and Israel says something about the modern Middle East. Within hours, a routine Israeli surveillance flight over Lebanon had turned into a bombing run 50 kilometers east of Damascus.
Here’s the sequence of events according to the laconic statement issued by the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit: An Israel Air Force plane was taking pictures in Lebanese airspace when an SA-5 missile was launched at it. The missile didn’t threaten the plane, but Israel decided not to let it pass. Two hours later, it attacked the radar of a Syrian anti-aircraft battery and took it out of operation.
Israel believes the Syrian army launched the missile because it feared the IAF planned an offensive strike. Just recently, former IAF commander Amir Eshel told Haaretz that Israel has conducted almost 100 airstrikes in Syria over the last five years against convoys ferrying arms to Hezbollah and other organizations.
Occasionally, these strikes prompt a Syrian response. In March, for instance, the Syrian army fired SA-5 missiles at Israeli fighter planes that were trying to bomb a Hezbollah arms convoy. That incident made waves because Israel, fearing the missiles would land in its territory, intercepted them with its Arrow anti-missile system. But it was preceded by at least three similar cases over the last two years in which Syria fired anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli planes.
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https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.817629
