Israeli Jets Strike Iranian Chemical Weapons Research Site In Syria: Report
Israeli Fighter Jet Image by Getty Images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An airstrike on an Iranian chemical weapons research site in Syria is being blamed on Israel.
The airstrike on Sunday evening was first reported by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The airstrike took place near Masyaf in northwest Syria.
The Observatory said that “sources confirmed that the explosions were caused by rocket shelling which targeted it as a result of strikes that are believed to be carried out by Israel, and no information was reported yet about the amount of the human losses, where the smoke was seen rising from the area.”
Syria’s official state-run SANA news agency reported that the site suffered only “material losses.” It also said that the site “was targeted by an Israeli aerial aggression in an attempt to cover up for the collapse of terrorist organizations in Daraa and Quneitra,” referring to the recent surrender of rebels in Syria’s long-running civil war.
The attack came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on the early morning rescue of civilian humanitarian aid workers in Syria that Israel “will not stop taking action in Syria against Iran’s attempts to establish a military presence there.”
Israel, as is its usual practice, neither confirmed nor denied the airstrikes.
Israel reportedly has carried out dozens of airstrikes on Syria’s army and its allies since 2011.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
