Israeli attack destroys ‘key military sites in Syria’ | News of Bashar al-Assad

250 Israeli airstrikes hit Syria in 48 hours, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Israel has launched airstrikes in Syria, targeting key military positions in the center of the security zone after opposition forces overthrew President Bashar al-Assad.

Near the port city of Latakia, Israel targeted an air defense site and damaged Syrian military ships and military warehouses. In and around the capital, Damascus, the strikes targeted military facilities, research centers and electronic warfare management.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a military watchdog, said Israel “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria, including Syrian airports and their warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, many places of weapons and ammunition in various places in many regions of Syria”.

Israel, which borders Syria, has sent troops to a protected area east of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after the fall of al-Assad, in what Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described as a “limited and temporary measure” for “security reasons”. It also carried out “about 250 airstrikes on Syrian territory” in the past 48 hours with the aim of destroying the former regime’s military capabilities, according to SOHR.

“Israel’s attack on Syria is systematic,” said Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Damascus. “They intend to destroy Syrian defense facilities”.

Serdar said the latest Israeli attacks targeted three major airports – Homs, Qamishli and Damascus – as well as weapons depots and other military facilities.

“Israel says it is doing this because it is worried that these strategic centers and military equipment could fall into the hands of opposition groups,” said Serdar.

There was no immediate reaction from Syria’s incoming Salvation Government, to which al-Assad’s Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali agreed on Monday to hand over power.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group of American Muslims, criticized the US government for continuing to support Israel despite its escalating attacks in the region, saying “the people of Syria deserve to rebuild their country without the cleansing and violence of foreign countries.”.

Pushing ‘beyond’ the Golan

The airstrikes come after Israeli forces recaptured more territory near the Syrian Golan Heights.

The attack violated a 50-year ceasefire agreement with Syria, which established a safe zone, according to United Nations peacekeepers.

Al Jazeera political analyst Marwan Bishara said “Israel has taken advantage of Damascus’ preoccupation with regime change to expand its presence in the Golan Heights and possibly beyond”.

Israel “called it temporary, but we know the meaning when Israel says temporary,” Bishara said. “In the West Bank it has been eating, for example, for almost sixty years”.

While Syria has been at war for more than 13 years, the fall of al-Assad’s government came days after an attack led by the opposition Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

The Syrian parliament, which had been pro-al-Assad as Prime Minister, said it supported “the will of the people to build a new Syria towards a better future governed by law and justice”.

The Baath party said it would support “a phase of reform in Syria aimed at protecting the unity of the country”.