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.#UPDATE: Ammunition depot was hit in the Israeli airstrikes near the Syrian town of Al-Zabadani, major blasts. pic.twitter.com/09lZHQ1Ioi
— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) December 30, 2020
On Thursday, Syrian media reported that air defense systems responded to another alleged Israeli airstrike in the northwest of the country. Four buildings, part of a munitions factory in Maysaf where the airstrike took place, were damaged.The area of Masyaf has been a target in several attacks in recent years, mostly attributed to the Israel Air Force. The last time an airstrike attributed to Israel targeted the area was in early June, when an airstrike targeted Syrian defense factories near the city. At least nine people, including four Syrian nationals, were reported dead as a result.In November, Syria’s state-controlled SANA news agency blamed Israel for a series of airstrikes on locations south of the capital, Damascus, near the village of Rwihinah, south of Quneitra near the Israeli border, and near Jabal Mane near the town of Kiswah south of Damascus. Eight pro-Iranian fighters were reportedly killed in the strikes.Israel has allegedly struck targets in Syria dozens of times over the past few years as part of its “war between the wars” campaign against the continued entrenchment of Iran and its terrorist proxy Hezbollah in Syria.Reuters and Tobias Siegal contributed to this report.תיעוד מרשים, ממש על הציר בין בקעת הלבנון לכביש דמשק. pic.twitter.com/N7B9VgCfxm
— אינטלי טיימס - Intelli Times (@IntelliTimes) December 30, 2020