Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that Israel launched dozens of strikes across Syria in recent days. The attacks drew sharp condemnation from U.N. Special Envoy Geir Pedersen, who called for a halt to the strikes.
“We are continuing to see Israeli movements and bombardments into Syrian territory. This needs to stop,” Pedersen said.
Katz said the Israeli navy “successfully destroyed the Syrian fleet” overnight. He added that he, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had directed the Israeli military to establish a “sterile defense zone” in southern Syria to “prevent the entrenchment and organization of terror” there.
The strikes, which were reported Monday and Tuesday in the northeast and around the capital, Damascus, targeted Syrian military installations, including multiple airports and a possible chemical weapons facility, according to two Western officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive security matter.
The IDF is “not involved in what’s happening in Syria internally,” said Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman, adding that Israel’s interest lies in “protecting our borders and the security of our civilians.”
Israel also deployed troops across the Syrian border, beyond a U.N.-monitored buffer zone, for the first time since the official end of the Yom Kippur War in 1974. The deployment follows the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to rebel forces.
“We are continuing to see Israeli movements and bombardments into Syrian territory. This needs to stop,” Pedersen said.
Katz said the Israeli navy “successfully destroyed the Syrian fleet” overnight. He added that he, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had directed the Israeli military to establish a “sterile defense zone” in southern Syria to “prevent the entrenchment and organization of terror” there.
The strikes, which were reported Monday and Tuesday in the northeast and around the capital, Damascus, targeted Syrian military installations, including multiple airports and a possible chemical weapons facility, according to two Western officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive security matter.
The IDF is “not involved in what’s happening in Syria internally,” said Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman, adding that Israel’s interest lies in “protecting our borders and the security of our civilians.”
Israel also deployed troops across the Syrian border, beyond a U.N.-monitored buffer zone, for the first time since the official end of the Yom Kippur War in 1974. The deployment follows the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to rebel forces.
Here’s what else to know
- Netanyahu testified at his corruption trial Tuesday, becoming the country’s first sitting leader to take the stand as a criminal defendant.
- The leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that led the charge to oust Assad last week, pledged in a statement Tuesday to “hold accountable” members of Assad’s regime who were “involved in torturing the Syrian people.”
- Mohammed al-Bashir, Syria’s newly appointed caretaker prime minister, will run a transitional government until March 1, he said in remarks Tuesday. He previously led the rebels’ civilian government.
- A member of Russia’s parliament called for Assad, who is now in Russia, to be given citizenship. “Russia treats all its allies humanely, even if they are defeated,” said Alexei Zhuravlyov.
- The U.S. Justice Department has leveled war crimes charges against two men who it said served as high-ranking officials under Assad. The DOJ said Jamil Hassan and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, who remain at large, engaged “in a conspiracy to commit cruel and inhuman treatment of civilian detainees, including U.S. citizens,” during Syria’s decade-long civil war.
