Rare rocket attacks from Syria embroiled Israel on yet another front after days of escalating regional violence ignited by a clash at a Jerusalem holy site.
The Israeli military said six rockets were fired overnight Saturday at the Golan Heights. Two landed in an open area of the plateau it captured from Syria during the 1967 Middle East War and later annexed. Another was intercepted, and three others fell short. No casualties were reported.
Israel’s military said it struck the area in Syria from which the rockets were launched with fighter jets, artillery and a drone. Targets included a military compound of the Syrian army, military radar systems and artillery posts, it said in a statement on Sunday. Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said Syrian defense forces shot down some of the rockets launched by Israel, and said the attacks led to unspecified “material losses.”
A Damascus-based Palestinian group loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said it fired three rockets on Saturday night to retaliate for the Israeli police action at al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV reported.
The confrontation follows multiple Israeli air strikes inside Syria in recent days, and the infiltration of an unidentified aircraft into Israel from its northeastern neighbor last week. The attacks have intensified a shadow war Israel is waging with arch-foe Iran, which has established a military and security presence in Syria to defend Assad in his war against opposition forces, and supports militant groups opposed to Israel’s existence like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories.
Amid the escalation, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah met in Beirut with a Hamas delegation led by the group’s top official, Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar TV reported on Sunday. They discussed “developments in occupied Palestine, the course of events in al-Aqsa mosque, the escalating resistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” as well as political developments in the region and “the readiness of the resistance axis and the cooperation of its parties in confronting all these events and developments,” the report said.
The U.S. military took the rare step on Saturday of announcing that it has deployed a nuclear-powered submarine in the region to counter rising tensions. Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant briefed U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday, his office said in a statement.
For more than a week, Israel has been fighting off attacks from Syria and Lebanon, where Palestinian groups maintain a strong presence in refugee camps situated in an area largely under Hezbollah’s control, and by Palestinian militants. On Friday, two British-Israeli sisters, aged 15 and 20, were shot to death while driving in the Israel-occupied West Bank, and a 35-year-old Italian man was killed when an Israeli Arab plowed his car into a group of tourists on a Tel Aviv promenade.
In response, Israeli authorities ordered the reinforcement of military and paramilitary forces and extended the ban on Palestinians from entering Israel until Thursday, preventing them from praying at al-Aqsa.
Violence between Israelis and Palestinians has been especially high this year, with more than 90 Palestinian militants and civilians killed by Israeli fire, including a man on Saturday. Palestinian attacks have killed 19 Israelis or visitors during that time. The clashes have been accompanied by rising vigilantism against the Palestinians on the part of a small minority of West Bank settlers.
The latest outbreak of regional clashes deepened Wednesday after Israeli forces entered a Jerusalem flashpoint holy to both Muslims and Jews during the overlap between the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover holiday. The Israeli police said they went in to remove masked men who had barricaded themselves inside the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, and had hurled stones and fireworks at them.
Friction in Jerusalem threatened to flare again on Sunday, when tens of thousands of devout Jews typically gather for a priestly blessing at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site. The remnant of the biblical Jewish temple sits at the foot of al-Aqsa mosque — which draws large crowds of worshipers during Ramadan. Some of the Jewish worshipers, under escort by Israeli police, also ascended the hilltop complex where al-Aqsa stands, which is known to Jews as Temple Mount and is their holiest shrine.
The widening violence catches Israel during one of the deepest domestic crises in its 75-year history. The plan of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to curtail the powers of the judiciary has ignited weekly protests unprecedented in their scope. Gallant has warned that Israel’s enemies see this internal division as an opportune moment to attack.
The security and domestic turmoil also comes at a time of big shifts in the region. Iran has ramped up uranium enrichment that Israel says is aimed at making a bomb, despite Tehran’s denial. It has also drawn closer to regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, with which Israel had hoped to normalize ties.
Israel considers Iran to be its top enemy due to its nuclear program, ballistic missile operations and support for regional anti-Israel militants.
—With assistance from Kateryna Kadabashy and Omar Tamo.
