Syria says Israel trying to destabilise country after land and air attacks

UN envoy for Syria slams ‘repeated’ military attacks by Israel in Syria, warning of violations of international law.

Syria has accused Israel of attempting to destabilise the country after it was hit by a double whammy of attacks on airbases and a deadly ground incursion, marking an intensification of Israeli military activity in the country.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said that Israeli shelling overnight on Wednesday in Syria’s southern province of Deraa killed nine people, and described a ground incursion by Israel’s soldiers in the area as the deepest since the toppling of former President Bashar al-Assad.

The country’s Foreign Ministry said on Telegram on Thursday that the overnight raids were an “unjustified escalation”, describing them as “a deliberate attempt to destabilise Syria and exacerbate the suffering of its people”.

A spokesperson for the Israeli army said on Thursday that it was responding to fire from gunmen during the ground operation in the Tasil area, near the city of Nawa, “seizing weapons and destroying terrorist infrastructure”.

“[Israel’s military] will not allow the existence of a military threat in Syria and will act against it,” the spokesperson added.

Residents of the Tasil area told the Reuters news agency that a group of armed locals were killed after confronting an Israeli army contingent that had arrived in the area to destroy a former Syrian army encampment.

Geir Pedersen, the United Nations envoy for Syria, decried “the repeated and intensifying military escalations by Israel in Syria”, saying that they undermined “efforts to build a new Syria at peace with itself and the region”.

He called on Israel “to cease these attacks which could amount to serious violations of international law”.

Strategic airbase smashed

Israeli aircraft carried out two attacks on military targets near Damascus late on Thursday, war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

“Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes on military positions and posts” in the vicinity of al-Kiswah and al-Muqaylibah outside Damascus, the Observatory said, adding that there were no immediate reports of casualties.

On Wednesday, Israel launched some of its most intense air attacks on Syria since rebels led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa deposed al-Assad in December.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Israel struck five separate areas within a 30-minute window overnight on Wednesday, resulting in the near-complete destruction of the Hama airbase and wounding dozens of civilians and soldiers.

The Israeli military said it had struck remaining military capabilities at airbases in Hama and Homs Governorates, in addition to remaining military infrastructure in the Damascus area, where Syrian media and officials said the vicinity of a scientific research facility was hit.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that the attacks were “a clear message and a warning for the future – we will not allow the security of the State of Israel to be harmed”.

Reflecting Israeli concerns about Turkish influence in the new Syria, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Turkiye of playing a “negative role” in Syria, Lebanon and other regions.

“They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that is their intention,” he told a news conference in Paris on Thursday.

Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry described Israel as a “strategic destabiliser” that was “causing chaos and feeding terrorism”, representing “the greatest threat to regional security”.

“Therefore, in order to establish security throughout the region, Israel must first abandon its expansionist policies, withdraw from the territories it occupies, and stop undermining efforts to establish stability in Syria,” said the ministry.

Neighbouring Jordan called Israel’s repeated attacks on Syria a clear breach of the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two countries and a “flagrant violation of international law”.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar also condemned the Israeli attacks.

Israel has carried out an extensive bombing campaign against Syrian military targets since rebels assumed control of the country.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded in February that southern Syria be completely demilitarised and said his government would not accept the presence of the forces of the new government near Israeli territory.

In December, Netanyahu ordered troops to enter the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces along the 1974 armistice line on the occupied Golan Heights.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies