Reports on alleged Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Syria continue to surface, as Israel and Russia work to prevent the possible collision of forces.
By: JNS and World Israel News
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) reportedly attacked a weapons convoy and munitions storage facilities in the Qalamoun region near Syria’s border with Lebanon on Saturday night, Lebanon’s Almustaqbal television station reported Sunday.
According to the report, the targeted storage facilities housed long-range surface-to-surface missiles that the Syrian army had transferred to the Hezbollah terrorist group.
A number of Hezbollah fighters and Syrian military soldiers were reportedly killed in Saturday’s strike and members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) were reportedly among the wounded.
The same report said it was the third Israeli strike in the Qalamoun region over a period of one week.
A Syrian opposition media source reported last Tuesday that the IAF carried out airstrikes against the Hezbollah and Syrian government targets around Syria’s Qalamoun Mountains on Monday evening.
A Free Syrian Army fighter takes cover while fighting in the Syrian civil war. (AP/Virginie Nguyen Huang, File)
The Qalamoun area, which borders Lebanon, has been the site of fierce battles between Hezbollah and Assad regime forces and the various Syrian Sunni rebels groups over the past months. It has also been a major relay point for weapons transfers between Hezbollah and the Syrian regime.
The Israeli military did not comment on the reports, as has been its policy in the past when such reports have surfaced.
There have been several previous reports of IAF airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Syria, primarily against weapons shipments. Many of the weapons shipments are financed by Iran.
Israel has repeatedly vowed to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring game-changing weaponry and has warned that any such attempts would be met with a strong Israeli response.
Amid the latest report on an Israeli strikes in the war-torn country, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday on the sidelines of the Paris Climate Conference to discuss coordination between their two militaries, which share the same Syria airspace.
“I think that, as you say, the events of recent days prove the importance of our coordination…[and] our attempts to cooperate with each other to prevent unnecessary accidents and tragedies, and I believe that we’ve been successful. It’s important,” Netanyahu told the Russian president.