Since the recent regime change in Syria, Israel has been carrying out more and more airstrikes against targets across the nation. The latest was today in Adra, a town in the metro Damascus area, where an Israeli drone killed at least 17 people, mostly civilians.
Details are still emerging over the latest attack. Israel has not commented on it at all, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they believed the attack was targeting a weapons depot in the industrial part of Adra.
Israel has made one of its priorities since the ouster of the Assad government attacking Syria’s military infrastructure. Israeli ground forces have also invaded additional territory in the Quneitra and Daraa Provinces, capturing villages.
Exactly where Israel is going to land on Syria is unclear. Though they cheered the ouster of President Assad and quickly made contact with the new Islamist government, the repeated airstrikes and concern about Turkey’s influence suggests they aren’t looking at Syria as a suddenly friendly neighbor.
Israeli FM Gideon Sa’ar over the weekend condemned the new Syrian Islamists as lacking legitimacy, saying as far as Israel is concerned they’re a “gang – not a legitimate government,” and attacked them for their “extreme ideologies.”
In the end, Israel’s stance toward Syria may not have changed dramatically with the regime change. Airstrikes are continuing apace, civilian bystanders are being killed, and while the new government talks of not being an enemy to Israel, that doesn’t seem to mean much in terms of slowing the rate of strikes.
