The Israeli Air Force has struck suspected sites for the production of chemical weapons and long-range guided missiles in Syria to prevent them from falling into hostile hands, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Monday.
“We attacked strategic weapons systems, like, for example, remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists,” Sa’ar told the Associated Press.
“The only interest we have is the security of Israel and its citizens,” he reiterated in his remarks to the wire agency. Sa’ar did not provide details about when or where the airstrikes were conducted.
The Syrian regime pledged to give up chemical weapons in 2013 after a mass attack on its own civilians in Ghouta in southwest Syria that year. Estimates of the death toll range from 300 people to more than 1,500.
In August 2023, an Israeli report warned of the possibility of Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists taking possession of chemical substances stored by the Syrian regime and using them to produce chemical weapons for use against IDF soldiers or civilians.
On Sunday, Syrian President Bashar Assad fled Damascus as rebel groups stormed the capital, ending his family’s five-decade rule.
“The tyrant Bashar Assad has been overthrown,” a rebel spokesperson declared in a statement carried on state television on Sunday morning.
Following the events, the IDF was deployed to the buffer zone with Syria and “several other places necessary for its defense.” The military said the move was taken to “ensure the safety of the communities of the Golan Heights and the citizens of Israel.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier on Monday morning that he ordered the continued destruction by the IDF of strategic weapons that were previously held by the Syrian regime and Iranian-backed militias, to prevent their falling into the hands of terrorists.
Among the arms taken out by the IDF are “surface-to-air missiles, air defense systems, surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, long-range rockets and coast-to-sea missiles,” the Defense Ministry said.