Israel Attacks Syrian Military After Stray Shell Damages Fence

Israel Offers Few Details About Latest Attacks in Southern Syria

Early today, reports were emerging that a stray artillery shell from Syria may have found its way into the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. It didn’t quite, but it did damage the military’s fence along the line of control, providing a pretext for Israel to attack Syria some more.

Israel has repeatedly attacked the Syrian military throughout the Syrian Civil War, sometimes publicly confirming incidents and sometimes not. Today, they would only say they hit two “army targets,” but declined to offer any details.

In the past most attacks have targeted military bases, with a occasional strike on a military convoy they believe to be ferrying weapons to Hezbollah. Such attacks sometimes follow stray fire into Golan, but target Syrian military forces even if the fire came from rebel factions.

Officially, Israel is neutral, though they have repeatedly insisted that they consider ISIS “preferable” to the Assad government as a ruler of Syria, and recently Israel’s military intelligence chief expressed concern that ISIS might lose the war outright.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.