Russia has again condemned an alleged Israeli airstrike that hit targets in Syria over the weekend, calling the IDF’s war-between-wars campaign in Syria “categorically unacceptable” and demanding it to stop.
"We strongly condemn such irresponsible actions that violate the sovereignty of Syria and the basic norms of international law, and we demand their unconditional cessation," said Foreign Minister Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
"We strongly condemn such irresponsible actions that violate the sovereignty of Syria and the basic norms of international law, and we demand their unconditional cessation."
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
Two Syrian civilians were wounded in the airstrike targeting sites near the coastal city of Tartus.
While Syria’s SANA state media said that the missiles targeted “several poultry farms in the vicinity of Hamadiyah, south of Tartus,” Israeli reports said that they targeted advanced air defense systems that had been transferred to the country by Iran.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile said that the strike targeted weapons that were headed to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The rare daytime strikes come as Israel has ramped up its war-between-the-wars campaign (known by the Hebrew acronym Mabam), targeting dozens of sites in Syria over the past month.
Russia in Syria
Tartus, along with the Hmeimim air base in the nearby province of Latakia, are the main Russian bases in the country.
Russia is enormously influential in Syria, where it intervened in 2015 on the side of President Bashar Assad. Israel and Russia have a deconfliction mechanism in place in order to make sure that Moscow is informed ahead of Israeli action.
Israel has warned repeatedly about Iran’s nuclear ambitions as well as aspirations of regional hegemony and has admitted to hundreds of airstrikes as part of its campaign to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the entrenchment of its forces in Syria where they could easily act against the Jewish state.
In an attempt to halt Iran’s hostile regional activity, Israel has increased its operations in Syria over the past year.
In early June, strikes targeting runways at Damascus International Airport disabled the entire airport for several weeks. Satellite images showed significant damage to the runways, at the airport, with three impact craters on both the military and civilian ones. runways.
Russia condemned airstrikes on the airport, with Foreign Minister Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying that such actions put civilian airlines and civilians in danger.
"We are compelled to reiterate that the ongoing Israeli shelling of the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, in violation of the basic norms of international law, is absolutely unacceptable," she said at the time. "We strongly condemn Israel's provocative attack on the most important object of the Syrian civilian infrastructure.," she said at the time.