1 killed, 3 injured in alleged Israeli airstrike near Syria-Lebanon border
The strike targeted Al Zabadani, located northwest of Damascus and just east of the border with Lebanon, according to Syrian media.
Syrian air defence batteries responding to what the Syrian state media said were Israeli missiles targeting Damascus, in a picture taken early on January 21st, 2019(photo credit: STR / AFP)ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF, TZVI JOFFRESyrian air defenses responded to an alleged Israeli airstrike near the Syria-Lebanon border on Tuesday night, which has left one soldier dead and three others wounded, according to a Syrian military source, SANA reported.The source added that the strike targeted an air defense unit in the area.
The open-source intelligence social media account Intelli Times tweeted earlier that the strike targeted a weapons stockpile intended for Hezbollah located along a weapons smuggling route between Syria and Lebanon.A round-trip Fars Air Qeshm flight between Tehran and Damascus was reported by civilian flight tracking sites on Monday. The airline is suspected of being used to smuggle weapons from Iran to Syria and Lebanon.The area around the once popular resort city of Al-Zabadani was part of a major supply route for weapons sent by Syria to Hezbollah before the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian conflict, which has killed more than 200,000 people.The airspace above the Golan Heights east of the Jordan River was closed to flights over 5,000 feet until Wednesday afternoon, shortly after the airstrikes were reported in Syria.On Wednesday, the IDF announced that it would be conducting an exercise on the Golan Heights on Wednesday and Thursday and that explosions and gunfire would be heard in the area during the exercise. The exercise is part of the planned exercises for 2020.This is the second alleged Israeli strike in Syria in the past week.