Amid threats from Syria, IDF deploys Iron Dome in central Israel

The Iron Dome defense battery was set up in the center of the country in light of Syrian threats against Ben Gurion Airport. Meanwhile, IDF troops were targeted by gunfire on the Golan.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The IDF deployed an Iron Dome anti-missile system in central Israel as a precautionary measure Wednesday in light of Syrian threats to target Ben Gurion Airport.

Syrian Ambassador to the U.N. Bashar Ja’afari warned on Tuesday that his country would hit Israel’s major international gateway if the Security Council does not stop Israel’s airstrikes.

However, there is little chance of Syria following through on its threat, according to Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security advisor.

“The Syrians have missiles that can reach Ben Gurion Airport,” the current senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies said on Radio 103FM Thursday. “They have anti-aircraft missiles that can damage planes coming out of Ben-Gurion Airport. But the relationship between us and Syria is such that a Syrian attempt would give us permission to strike them so hard that the Syrian regime would be over, so I don’t see the Syrians risking such an incident.”

Despite the fact that Iranians shot a surface-to-surface missile Sunday at Israel from Syrian territory that was intercepted successfully by the Iron Dome, Amidror does not believe that Tehran would escalate the situation. Saying that tough talk in the Middle East doesn’t translate into action, he noted, “Once it comes to support, one doesn’t help the other…. The Iranians in Syria have no ability to back the Syrians. This is what we’re fighting for and what we want to prevent.”

Despite the lull in airborne activity over the past few days, IDF troops operating clandestinely near the northern border came under small arms fire from the Syrian side on Wednesday night. According to Ynet, the attackers had been setting up an ambush near Quneitra, in the same spot where armed men had attempted to cross the 1974 cease-fire line almost a month ago. The IDF returned fire, and no casualties were reported.

Israeli Air Force jets hit dozens of targets in Syria at the beginning of the week, most of them linked to Iranian military assets. One was a weapons depot near the Damascus airport, confirmed as such when numerous secondary explosions were heard after the strike.