The Israel Air Force carried out a strike on the headquarters of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Damascus, Syria on Thursday, according to the Israeli military.
“A short time ago, air force fighter jets, guided by the Northern Command and the Intelligence Directorate, attacked a terrorist headquarters of the PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) in Damascus. From this location, the organization planned and managed its terrorist activities,” the IDF said.
צה״ל ימשיך לפגוע בארגוני הטרור הפלסטינים בכל מקום בו יצטרך וימשיך לפעול להגנה על אזרחי מדינת ישראל
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 13, 2025
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also confirmed the strikes, saying, “Wherever terrorist activity against Israel is organized, the leader of radical Islam, al-Julani, will find air force jets hovering above him and striking terrorist targets,” referring to Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mohammad al-Julani.
“We will not allow Syria to become a threat to the State of Israel,” Katz continued, as quoted by Israeli journalist Amit Segal.
Israeli fighter jets on Monday night attacked radars and other detection equipment in southern Syria, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Tuesday morning.
Command positions and sites containing weapons belonging to the former Assad regime were also hit.
“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,” the military said.
Israel carried out “targeted raids” in Syria over the past week, locating, confiscating and dismantling numerous weapons, the IDF said on Saturday.
Israeli forces 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 army 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 said.
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 committed by forces loyal to al-Sharaa. More than a thousand people, mostly civilians, 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: “This weekend, the masks fell. Al-Julani’s men mercilessly massacred their own people—the citizens of the so-called ‘New Syria.’”
