Israel bombs a “military position” in Syria in response to a rocket fired into the country

12 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Israeli army carried out a bombardment on Friday against a “military position” in southern Syria in response to the launching of a projectile into its territory on Thursday night, an incident that resulted in no casualties, amid heightened tensions in the Middle East.

“During the night, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked a military position in the Tehsil area in southern Syria, in response to the launch detected on Thursday night towards the southern Golan Heights, which fell in an open area, causing no casualties,” the army said in a brief statement posted on its website.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has informants in the country, said Israel attacked a facility located between the towns of Tehsil and Aduan, in Daraa province. “There are no reports of casualties,” it said, although Damascus has not commented on the matter.

The incidents came two days after Israel said it had attacked a number of military installations in southern Syria, arguing that they had been built in violation of an agreement signed in 1974 between the two countries following the end of the Yom Kippur War (1973).

“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have used tanks and artillery to attack various military infrastructure of the Israeli Army that exceeded the 1974 separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria in the buffer zone.”

The infrastructure is located in the Golan Heights, a territory that Israel seized from Syria during the Six-Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973) and which it effectively annexed in 1981, in a move not recognized by the international community.

Israel has admitted to carrying out strikes in Syria for years, arguing that it is acting to prevent the establishment of Iranian bases in the country and the sending of weapons to the Lebanese Shiite militia party Hezbollah by the Iranian authorities, which support Damascus in the framework of the war that broke out in 2011.