Israel Launches Airstrikes Near Syria’s Presidential Palace

Netanyahu says attack is ‘clear warning’ to HTS government

A week after the leader of Syria’s Islamist government, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was talking about his openness to normalizing relations with Israel, the Israeli military has carried out yet more strikes against Syria, attacking the area around the presidential palace in the capital city of Damascus Friday.

There were no reports of casualties in the Damascus strike, but a second drone strike against the Suwayda Governorate killed at least four. Sharaa warned this was a “reprehensible” Israelis attack on Syria, and a “dangerous escalation.” At least 20 Israeli strikes were carried out Friday.

Dangerous escalation has been the order of the day since the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took over Syria in December. Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initially took credit for the regime change, Israel also immediately turned hostile to the HTS, invading southern Syria and occupying an ever-growing part of the southwest.

Pre-dawn scene of Damascus presidential palace after strike | Image from social media

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said today’s attack against the palace was a “clear warning” to Sharaa not to defy Israeli demands that they have no military assets south of Damascus. They also tried to link this to recent sectarian violence involving Syria’s Druze minority, saying they feel an obligation to protect the Druze.

Israel already carried out a strike on Wednesday nominally to protect the Druze, These strikes only seem to be growing, and the Druze are only sometimes used as the pretext. HTS’s Islamist nature is also often the excuse, as well as just general claims of Israel national defense needs.

Large scale anti-Israel protests were reported in Homs and Daraa after the news of the attack on Damascus. While Israel’s invasion and occupation of the southwest had mostly not been getting a lot of pushback outside of the specific region targeted, it seems this strike is waking more of Syria up to the situation.

Attacking the presidential palace grounds, even if the strike didn’t cause any casualties, is a dramatic escalation, and seemingly an escalation for its own sake. Already it has led to international criticism of Israel, and the talk of normalization is probably going to take a back seat to just getting Israel to stop escalating their war on Syria.

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.