Israel Confirms Airstrike in Syria

Israel confirmed Thursday it carried out an airstrike the night before in northern Syria while a war-monitoring group said the attack killed an Iranian and six Iraqi fighters allied with President Bashar Assad’s government forces.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the strike on Wednesday night targeted an Iranian weapons depot and also wounded several other fighters.

Syrian state media said the country’s air defenses responded to an “Israeli air aggression” targeting positions in an industrial area northeast of the city of Aleppo, causing material damage only.

The Israeli military does not usually comment on reports concerning its airstrikes in neighboring Syria though it has recently acknowledged striking Iranian targets in Syria.

Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz referred to the latest strike in an interview with Israel Radio on Thursday.

“According to sources, it’s Israel,” Katz said. “As the Syrians say and responded, it’s Israel. According to what Iran knows, it’s Israel.”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, “Iran is constantly trying to bring very advanced and very deadly long-range precision missiles into Syria. We’re not prepared to accept this and our operations against Iran’s military entrenchment efforts in Syria — to introduce advanced weaponry — continue all the time.”