Syria says its air defense units have confronted a missile attack launched by the Israeli army from the occupied Golan Heights targeting the Arab country’s south.
Citing a military source, Syria’s official SANA news agency, reported that the Israeli regime conducted the aerial assault at about 5 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) on Sunday.
Syrian air defenses “intercepted the aggression’s missiles and shot down some of them,” the source said, during that the Israeli raid caused some material damage.
تصدت وسائط دفاعنا الجوي لعـ*دوان إسـ*رائيلي استهدف بالصواريخ نقاطاً في المنطقة الجنوبية وأسقطت بعض صواريخ العـ*دوان.
— الوكالة العربية السورية للأنباء - سانا (@SanaAjel) April 9, 2023
https://t.co/FkTVNT8hBR
The Israeli attack followed the firing of six rockets from southern Syria at the Tel Aviv-occupied Golan on Saturday night and early Sunday in two separate barrages.
The al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement, claimed responsibility for rocket launches on the Golan Heights, according to Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen TV channel.
The Israeli army announced artillery and drone strikes in southern Syria, targeting what it called the launchers that had been used to fire rockets.
Later, reports said Israel carried out additional airstrikes near the Syrian capital Damascus.
On Thursday, more than 30 rockets were fired toward the occupied territories from southern Lebanon, drawing Israeli strikes on what it called the sites linked to the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
The exchanges of fire came amid heightened tensions in the occupied lands after violent Israeli raids on the al-Aqsa Mosque in al-Quds, which caused outrage across the Muslim world.
Jordan warned of “catastrophic consequences” if Israeli forces were to storm the holy mosque again.
Should the Israeli police, “assault worshipers again… in preparation for major incursions into the mosque,” it would, “push the situation towards more tension and violence, for which everyone will pay the price,” Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sinan al-Majali said in a statement.
Israel “bears responsibility for the escalation in Jerusalem (al-Quds) and in all the occupied Palestinian territories and for the deterioration that will worsen if it does not stop its incursions into the holy al-Aqsa Mosque… and its terrorization of worshipers in these blessed days.”