Iranian forces in Syria shell Israeli army bases on Golan: Israel – By Reuters Staff (reuters.com) / May 9 2018
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iranian forces in Syria shelled Israeli army outposts on Thursday but caused no casualties, the Israeli military said, and the Syrian military was later quoted as saying its air defenses had confronted Israeli rocket fire on its territory.
It came a night after Syria accused Israel of striking one of its military bases south of Damascus, an attack that a war monitor said killed 15 people including eight Iranians.
Israel’s military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said Israel had retaliated for the attack on its outposts in the strategic Golan Heights plateau, which it partly occupies, without elaborating.
Syrian state media, citing a military source on the incident, also did not elaborate. Earlier, state news agency SANA and a war monitor reported artillery fire from Israeli-held territory at Baath City in Quneitra province.
The war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said rockets were fired at military positions of the Syrian army and allied forces in Baath City.
The late-night incident followed a surge in tensions between Israel and Syria, where Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces have been helping Damascus beat back a 7-year-old rebellion.
Fearing that Iran and Hezbollah are setting up a Lebanese-Syrian front against it, Israel has occasionally struck at their forces. Iran blamed it for an April 9 air strike that killed seven of its military personnel in Syria, and vowed revenge.
Conricus said that, in Thursday’s attack, around 20 projectiles, most likely rockets, were fired by the Quds Force, an external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, at around 12.10 a.m.
“A few of those rockets were intercepted” by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, Conricus told reporters. “We are not aware of any casualties. The amount of damage that we currently assess is low.”
Asked if Israel retaliated for the salvo, he said, “We have retaliated but I have no further details about this.”
Expectations of a regional flare-up were stoked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement on Tuesday that he was withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear deal. Hours later, Israeli rocket rockets targeted a military base in Kisweh, a commander in the pro-Syrian government regional alliance said.
