Israel Sends More Troops Into Syria, Launches Airstrikes on Multiple Sites

Israel continued its attacks on Syria this weekend, sending more troops into the Quneitra Governorate near the occupied Golan Heights and also launching multiple airstrikes against military sites in central Syria, including a military airport in Tadmur.

The Tadmur strikes came early Saturday morning, targeting the Palmyra air base and a nearby military airfield. Two members of Syria’s military were reported wounded in the attacks, according to reports. Tadmur was historically known as the ancient city of Palymra, which is why some media reports referred to it as Tadmur Air Base.

Later Saturday evening, Israel attacked military installations and officers’ residences just south of Damascus, in the suburb of Nadzha. Damage was reported, but so far no official casualty figures are reported.

Sunday, an additional attack was carried out against a bridge connecting Hawsh al-Sayyid Ali village to neighboring Lebanon. This attack is curious because it is in the same area where Syrian forces occupied the Lebanese side of the border briefly last week, but has seemingly no military relevance for Israel.

This flurry of airstrikes is going on concurrently with the Israeli ground invasion into southern Syria, which began in December after the ouster of the Assad government. Overnight Friday into Saturday, a growing number of Israeli troops were reported seen in the area around al-Rafid and al-Asha.

The troops are said to have come from a military outpost inside the occupied Golan Heights, and were advancing along a dirt road on the Syrian side of the Alpha ceasefire line. Locals expressed concern about this, saying this convoy was a lot larger than previous ones and didn’t simply stop at the usual locations inside Syrian territory before departing. Some termed it the most extensive incursion into Syria in months.

Israeli forces in smaller numbers have advanced much deeper into Syria than this, but the size of the force suggests that this may be different from the past incursions. Local disquiet is also growing because the new Syrian government is largely silent on the matter, and the international community has similarly offered only tepid opposition to the invasion.

US Envoy Steve Witkoff was even upbeat about the prospect of “normalization” between Israel and Syria diplomatically after Assad’s ouster. Though Syria’s government initially expressed hope for having Israel on relatively friendly terms, that appears impossible with them actively invading and occupying parts of Syria, an invasion that US officials have broadly endorsed, to the extent they’ve addressed it at all.