Israeli fighter jets on Monday night struck radars and other detection equipment in southern Syria, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed Tuesday morning.
Additionally, the Israeli Air Force targeted command positions and sites containing weapons belonging to the former Assad regime.
“The presence of these assets in southern Syria posed a threat to the State of Israel and IDF activities. These targets were struck in order to eliminate future threats,” according to the IDF.
Israel carried out “targeted raids” in Syria over the past week, locating, confiscating and dismantling numerous weapons, the IDF said on Saturday.
The troops are “deployed at strategic points in Syria” and will “continue operations to eliminate any threat and strengthen the defense of the State of Israel and its citizens,” the IDF added.
Last week, IAF jets attacked an Assad regime military site near Qardaha, overlooking Latakia in northwestern Syria, in response to “recent developments in the area.”
The strike targeted “a military site where weapons belonging to the previous Syrian regime were stored,” the IDF added.
Since the fall of the Iranian- and Russian-backed Assad regime on Dec. 8, Israel has taken up positions inside and beyond the Golan Heights buffer zone, including on the strategic Syrian side of Mount Hermon.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Sunday strongly condemned atrocities in Syria allegedly committed by forces loyal to the country’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa. More than a thousand people were murdered in the coastal provinces of Tartus and Latakia, according to reports.
Sa’ar dismissed al-Sharaa’s assurances of inclusivity as a façade, referring to him by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani: “This weekend, the masks fell. Al-Jolani’s men mercilessly massacred their own people—the citizens of the so-called ‘New Syria.’”