The Israeli army confirmed for the first time on Wednesday that special forces in September raided an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arms facility used by Hezbollah in the Masyaf area of northwestern Syria.
“This is one of the most dangerous and courageous commando missions the IDF has carried out outside the country’s borders in recent years,” a military source told reporters on Wednesday.
“The Air Force’s careful planning led to the desired result: destruction of critical Iranian strategic capability in Syria, dozens of kilometers from Israel,” the source said.
Syria’s SANA news agency reported on Sept. 8 that Israeli Air Force fighter jets hit military sites near Masyaf, killing at least 14 people and wounding dozens, while unconfirmed Arab media reports claimed that the IDF also had boots on the ground during the raid.
Reuters, citing two regional intelligence sources, reported that the Israeli operation targeted the Scientific Studies and Research Center, a military base that is believed to be responsible for research and development of nuclear, biological, chemical and missile technology and weapons.
The center was thought to have housed a team of IRGC military experts and provided logistical support to Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists.
The IAF reportedly hit the facility’s access road to prevent the approach of Syrian troops before helicopters carrying IDF special forces operators arrived, with support from helicopter gunship and drones.
IDF commandos were said to have entered an arms depot, removed equipment and sensitive documents and then set off explosives to destroy the facility. During the heavy fighting, two to four Iranian operatives were said to have been detained by Israeli soldiers.
The IDF revealed on Wednesday that the operation, which was carried out by the Israeli Air Force’s elite Shaldag unit, destroyed an underground Iranian missile factory that was code-named “Deep Layer.” There were no casualties among Israeli soldiers in the raid.
The military confirmed that the forces seized intelligence documents.
Israel rarely admits to attacks on Syrian territory, although in February it revealed that it had attacked more than 50 targets belonging to Iranian-backed Hezbollah and other terrorist groups in Syria since Oct. 7, 2023.
The same month, Reuters reported that Tehran removed senior IRGC officers from Syria following a series of deadly IAF aerial attacks.
Since the fall of the Iranian-backed Assad regime on Dec. 8, the IDF has taken up positions inside and beyond the Golan Heights buffer zone, including on the strategic Syrian side of Mount Hermon. The Israeli Air Force has conducted hundreds of strikes on Assad military assets to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile forces.
Syria’s Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which spearheaded the toppling of the Assad regime, declared in December that it was no longer necessary for IDF troops to be in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, because Bashar Assad’s ouster had removed the threat posed by Iranian terrorist proxies.
On Dec. 9, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “the Assad regime in Syria, a central link in Iran’s axis of evil, has collapsed after 54 years.
“That regime had spread hostility towards Israel, attacked Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and “served as an outpost of Iranian terrorism and as a conduit for weapons from Iran to Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said.
The prime minister took credit for the regime’s collapse—a “direct result” of the “heavy blows” inflicted on Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.