BEIRUT: An overnight Israeli strike from Lebanese airspace targeted a Hezbollah arms depot in Syria, a British-based activist group said Tuesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the explosions heard in rural Damascus resulted from Israeli warplane rocket fire in the area of Qutayfa.
“The shelling that was from Lebanese territory targeted weapons storehouses belonging to Hezbollah and the Syrian army’s third division,” a statement from the Observatory said. “The shelling caused consecutive explosions and fires that caused heavy material damage,” the statement added, noting that there was no information yet on casualties.
It isn't uncommon for Israel to carry out attacks on Syrian territory while violating Lebanese airspace.
Since Hezbollah’s entry into the Syrian war, Israel has on multiple occasion targeted arms depots in Syria it claims belong to the group.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in answer to a reporter's question about the attacks that Israel's policy was to stop Hezbollah moving "game-changing weapons" out of Syria.
"We back it up as necessary with action," he said, without explicitly confirming Israel carried out Tuesday's strikes.
During a TV interview last week, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah replied to criticism directed at the party for not responding to Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Syria.
“Not answering the Israeli strikes is based on the rules of engagement and we will respond at the right time,” he said. “The strikes ... will not prevent the access of arms to the resistance and they [the Israelis] know that.”
The Syrian army also confirmed the attack in a statement carried by the Syrian Arab News Agency. However, it did not specify that it was a Hezbollah-controlled site that was targeted.
The army said that its defense systems responded to three Israeli attacks that took place in the early morning hours of Tuesday, including the missiles that targeted Qutayfa.
“At 2:40 a.m., the Israeli enemy’s warplanes launched several missiles from Lebanese territories towards Qutayfa in rural Damascus, which were thwarted by our aerial defense systems, inflicting damage on one of the [Israeli] jets,” the statement said.
Israel also launched ground-to-ground missiles from the occupied Golan Heights at 3:04 a.m., followed by another at 4:15 a.m., when its forces launched four rockets from Tabarayah in the occupied Golan Heights. The Syrian army said it destroyed one rocket, while the remaining fell near an army base, causing material damage.