The Israel Defense Forces has conducted 300 strikes in Syria since Sunday’s ouster of Bashar Assad, Israeli media reported on Tuesday, marking the heaviest air campaign in the country since the 1972 Yom Kippur War.
Israel’s Ynet news outlet cited Western intelligence sources late Monday night as confirming the figure, saying that the aerial assault is mainly targeting air force bases, including entire squadrons of fighter jets.
It is believed that the Syrian Air Force could be destroyed in its entirety “within a few days,” Ynet noted, which would substantially reduce the threat posed to the Jewish state by the incoming Syrian government.
The last time Israel destroyed an entire air force was in 1967, when the Egyptian Air Force was wiped out in the first hours of the Six-Day War.
Local security sources told Reuters on Monday that the Israeli Air Force had attacked at least three army bases that housed dozens of helicopters and jets in the largest wave of strikes on the Syrian Air Force since Assad was toppled.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based war monitor with links to the Syrian opposition, was cited by AFP as confirming that Israel carried out more than 100 strikes on Monday, including on a suspected chemical weapons production site. The IDF did not immediately comment on the strikes.
Early on Tuesday morning, AFP and Al Jazeera reported loud blasts in Damascus, with the latter outlet attributing the explosions to Israel.
On Sunday, Syrian President Bashar Assad fled Damascus as a coalition of rebel groups stormed the capital, ending his family’s five-decade rule.
“The tyrant Bashar Assad has been overthrown,” a rebel spokesperson declared in a statement carried on state television on Sunday morning.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar confirmed that the IAF had struck sites used to produce chemical weapons and long-range missiles in an attempt to prevent them from falling into hostile hands.
“We attacked strategic weapons systems, like for example remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists,” Sa’ar told the Associated Press.
“The only interest we have is the security of Israel and its citizens,” he reiterated in his remarks to the wire agency. The top diplomat did not provide details about when or where the airstrikes were conducted.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier on Monday morning that he had ordered the continued destruction by the IDF of strategic weapons that were previously held by the Syrian regime and Iranian-backed militias, to prevent their falling into the hands of terrorist groups.
Among the arms taken out by the IDF were “surface-to-air missiles, air defense systems, surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, long-range rockets and coast-to-sea missiles,” the Defense Ministry stated.
Katz has also ordered the military to set up a secure area free of strategic weapons and terror infrastructure inside Syrian territory, beyond the buffer zone on the Israel-Syria border. The 210th “Bashan” Division began proactive operations on Sunday to ensure “the protection of the residents of the Golan Heights in light of the internal events in Syria,” the IDF said.
Katz said he had also instructed the military to establish full control over the once-demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan, which was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War.
According to Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen outlet, which is closely affiliated with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror organization, IDF tanks have reached positions 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the town of Qatana, which is located some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the outskirts of Damascus.
Three security sources, one in Syria and two in the region, confirmed the report, telling Reuters on Tuesday that IDF soldiers had reached Qatana.
An IDF spokesperson denied the reports later on Tuesday, telling Reuters that Israeli ground forces “have not left the buffer zone.”
Jerusalem reportedly informed the United States that its activities in Syria constitute “temporary and tactical operations” to protect civilians in its north. A U.S. government source signaled Washington’s approval for the move in a conversation with Israel’s Kan News broadcaster, saying that “no nation can tolerate terror groups on its doorstep.”
“Since the Syrian army abandoned its positions in and around the Israeli-Syrian buffer zone, Israel has declared that Syria’s enforcement of the 1974 ceasefire agreement has collapsed. Israel has taken temporary measures to stabilize the buffer zone and prevent an invasion of Israeli territory,” the American source told the Israeli public broadcaster.
“We hope that, in the future, we will see the area return to stability,” added the source.
Two sources familiar with the details of the conversations told Kan News that Jerusalem had informed the Biden administration of its intention to take control of the Syrian part of Mount Hermon and the buffer zones. Washington has not expressed public opposition to the moves.
