Syria Expert: Israel Attacks Syrian Targets 'all the time'

Jerusalem, 7 December, 2016 (TPS) -- Efraim Inbar, professor emeritus at Bar Ilan University and founder of the university’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, told Tazpit Press Service (TPS) Wednesday that if reports of an overnight Israeli strike on a Syrian airbase are true, the attack was only the latest in a long string of Israeli moves in the war-striken nation.

According to reports, including on Hezbollah media, Israeli warplanes fired surface-to-surface missiles from Lebanese airspace early Wednesday morning, setting off a series of massive explosions and a large fire. at the Maja’a airbase, near Damascus, Syria.

“Israel attacks Hezbollah targets in Syria all the time,” said Inbar. “That’s the whole game in Syria today: Israel is trying to prevent Iran from deepening its presence on [and near] the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, and also trying to prevent what they call ‘balance changing’ weapons from reaching Hezbollah. I have no more information about this report than you do, but I can say that if it turns out to be true, there is nothing new about it.”

Asked to speculate, Inbar said he could imagine two obvious targets for an Israeli attack: arms shipments headed for Hezbollah, or an Iranian settlement near the Syrian capital.

Hebrew-language media outlet Ynet reported the words of Defense Minister Liberman, claiming that Israel was “attempting to prevent the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction to [the Lebanon-based] Hezbollah.”

This event follows on the heels of the IDF releasing in its Facebook account a media document on Tuesday named “Declassified Map of Hezbollah’s Military Infrastructure in Lebanon,” showing the location of weapons warehouses, rocket launchers, infantry positions, underground infrastructures, anti-tank positions and commands posts around scattered closely around 85 civilian villages. The IDF psot read “This is a war crime.”

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit would not comment on the reports of Wednesday’s strikes.