By Yunus Olawale
Fears of a new front in Israel’s fight with Hamas in Gaza have been raised by persistent rocket and artillery exchanges with allied Palestinian factions and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah over Israel’s northern borders with Syria and Lebanon.
Eight troops were killed by Israeli attacks early on Wednesday in southern Syria, while the Israeli army claimed that the strikes were in retaliation for earlier rocket firing.
Syrian state media said, “Around 1:45 am (2245 GMT Tuesday), the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the occupied Golan Heights.”
They added that, in addition to causing material damage, the strikes also injured seven soldiers.
In addition to the report, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added that eleven soldiers were killed, four of whom were officers.
The strikes “destroyed arms depots and a Syrian air defence radar,” according to the war monitor stationed in Britain. An army battalion was apparently among the targets.
Syria’s two main airports, in Aleppo and Damascus, were rendered inoperable by Israeli strikes on Sunday, according to Syrian official media.
In the worst attack in Israel’s history, they also took more than 220 hostages.
In response, Israel launched devastating airstrikes and imposed a nearly complete blockade of Gaza’s land, sea, and airspace. According to the health ministry administered by Hamas, 5,791 people have died in the conflict so far in Gaza.
Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes against Syria over the course of the country’s more than ten-year civil war. The main targets of these raids have been Syrian army sites and Hezbollah fighters, as well as other forces supported by Iran.
Israel has made it clear on numerous occasions that it will not permit its fiercest adversary, Iran, to increase its influence in Syria. However, during the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured a large portion of the Golan Heights, which it eventually annexed in a move that was never acknowledged by the UN.