DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Israel has recently escalated targeting of areas in Syria, focusing on warehouses of Iranian-backed militias at a time when the countries of the nuclear agreement seek to reach a new formula for the agreement with Iran, amid Israeli fears of its repercussions.
On September 6, Israel targeted Aleppo International Airport for the second time in one week, leaving material losses in the airport.
An exclusive source from the airport told North Press on Wednesday the Israeli attack targeted a plane that was about to take off, heading to Najaf in Iraq with two leaders of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah on it.
On 31 August, Israeli missile strikes targeted Rif Dimashq, southern Syria, about two hours after a similar Israeli bombardment hitting the vicinity of Aleppo International Airport, resulting in material damage to the airport.
On Wednesday, Faisal Mekdad, the Syrian Foreign Minister, criticized both international and Arabic silence regarding the successive Israeli shelling of Syria.
The Ministry, on Twitter, said, “The repeated Israeli attacks, particularly the systematic and deliberate targeting of the civilian targets in Syria, the latest of which was targeting Aleppo International Airport yesterday, amount to a crime of aggression and a war crime in accordance with the international law.”
Mekdad added Israel was “playing with fire” and risking a wider military conflict, according to Arabic media reports.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry, on Facebook cited Mekdad as saying, “Syria will not remain silent in the face of these aggressions, and sooner or later the Israelis will pay the price.”
The ministry accused the US and the West of “turning a blind eye and encouraging Israel.”
Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement, “The ongoing Israeli military aggressions threaten to explode the security and military situation in the region.
Israeli shelling
On August 25, several sites in the western countryside of Hama, in western Syria, were subjected Israeli airstrikes against military posts, likely affiliated with the Iranian-backed militias.
On August 27, Oleg Yegorov, deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Khmeimim, said in a statement “The on-duty air defense forces of the Armed Forces of the SAR destroyed two missiles and seven guided from the eastern Mediterranean targeted the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Masyaf using the Russian-made Pantsir-S1 and S-75 systems.”
On August 15, Israeli airstrike targeted military posts of Syrian government forces in Tartus and Rif-Dimashq Governorates, killing three members and wounding three others.
On August 12, two individuals were wounded in Israeli shelling of a village north of Quneitra, southwest Syria.
The recent Israeli attack that hit Aleppo Airport, is the 24th attack against the Syrian soil during the year 2022.
Iran supply lines
Most of the Israeli attacks on Syria focused on Iranian depots, as well as moves of Iran.
Israel intensified strikes on Syria’s airports to disrupt Iran’s increasing use of air supply lines to handing weapons to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah, diplomatic and intelligence sources told Reuters.
Tehran resorted to air transport; as a safer means of supplying its forces and affiliated factions with military equipment in Syria, after ground transportation was disrupted.
A leader in an Iranian-backed regional coalition told Reuters that the attack damaged Aleppo airport before the arrival of a plane from Iran.
On September 2, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, “We consider similar irresponsible moves by Israel to be absolutely inadmissible. We resolutely condemn them.”
We urge Israel to stop its armed military provocations against neighboring Syria and refrain from any moves that put the entire region at risk of dangerous consequences,” reads Zakharova’s remark.
Late in August, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, called on Israel to respect the sovereignty of Syrian lands.
fears
Igor Kostyukov, Head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Intelligence Department (GRU), suggested that The United States is creating a threat of turning Syria into an arena of confrontations between Israel and Iran.
“With the United States being behind it, there is a threat of turning Syria into an arena of Israeli-Iranian confrontation,” Kostyukov said during the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security in mid-August.
New York Times, revealed in a report in August, citing a source in Damascus as saying that the Syrian government had asked Iran and its proxies stop attacking Israel from Iranian bases on Syrian territory in order to avoid an “all-out war.”
This came in an Iran-led alliance meeting that was held a year ago.
Officials from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and Al-Quds Force branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) met in the meeting to discuss how to respond to Israeli strikes carried out in Syria against Iranian interests, I24News reported.
The source said that because of this request, “Iran-led axis started launching attacks against bases of the US in Syria in an attempt to make the US “pressure Israel into halting its strikes on Syria,” according to the report.
The British special envoy to Syria, Jonathan Hargreaves, said that the Israeli airstrikes campaign against Iranian military targets, “may be the only thing that works in Syria.”
Danger of Iran
Israel fears Iran’s nuclear danger, especially in light of the meetings and consultations to sign a new agreement between the countries of the nuclear agreement and Iran.
US and Israeli officials told an American website that the Biden administration has been seeking in recent days to reassure Israel that it has not agreed to new concessions with Iran, and that the nuclear agreement is not imminent.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that Israel would continue to do everything to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear capability.
Two days ago, the Israeli Army issued a statement, on the occasion of on the 15th anniversary of Operation Outside the Box, also known as Operation Orchard in which a nuclear reactor in Syria was targeted, and it revealed “for the first time” an intelligence document dating back to 2002, revolving around a suspected “secret” nuclear project in Syria.
The statement said, ” A suspected nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region deep within Syrian territory was razed by Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter jets on 6 September 2007.”
The secret nuclear facility, also referred to as the Al Kibar Reactor, is believed to have been constructed with North Korea’s assistance and guidance.
“We knew there were some activities that may have been involved with possible atomic energy, but we didn’t know anything more than that in 2002. It took us a few years until we had very tangible proof,” then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told i24NEWS.
“There were about 50 different photos of the inside of an atomic reactor. There was no doubt about the nature of this and the purpose of this. It was made to build only one thing: an atomic bomb,” Olmert added