Israel Declines to Comment on Fresh Airstrikes Against Missile Warehouses in Syria

Israeli soldiers cross the security fence moving toward the Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, on Dec. 15, 2024. Matias Delacroix/AP Photo

A respected war monitoring group says Israel has bombed missile warehouses near the Syrian port of Tartous and called them the “most violent strikes” since 2012.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an independent network based in the UK, said in a Dec. 16 report on its website that “violent explosions were heard in Tartous due to consecutive strikes and explosions of ground-to-ground missiles from the warehouses.”

SOHR said Israeli fighter jets carried out airstrikes on air defense positions of the former Syrian army, a missiles depot, and several missile launchers and bases in the Zama area, near Tartous.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented on the report.

The Times of Israel reported that the Geographic Survey of Israel’s seismology department recorded a tremor at 11.49 p.m. local time on Dec. 15, with its epicenter 17 miles off the coast near the Syrian city of Banias.

The newspaper said Hebrew language media had attributed the tremor to heavy Israeli strikes in the Tartous area. Still, the media outlets pointed out there was no confirmation it was caused by explosions.

SOHR said there had been 473 Israeli air strikes on Syrian territory since Bashar al-Assad was ousted on Dec. 8.

‘Destroy Syria’s Military Assets’

“The attacks focused on military positions of former regime forces, including airbases, radar systems, air-defence units, weapons and ammunitions warehouses, as a part of efforts by Tel Aviv to completely destroy Syria’s military assets,” the Dec. 16 SOHR report reads.

“Yesterday, Israeli fighter jets carried out a round of airstrikes, which was the most violent round ever since the beginning of airstrikes in Syrian territory in 2012.”

Last week, Israel said it had destroyed several Syrian navy vessels and missile stockpiles on Dec. 10 to “prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorist elements.”

The Israeli Navy attacked the ports of Latakia and al-Bayda, where 15 Syrian vessels were docked.

A statement on the IDF website said, “The IDF struck most of the strategic weapons stockpiles in Syria, preventing them from falling into the hands of terrorist elements.”

After Assad fell, Israeli troops also moved into a buffer zone between the Golan Heights and Syria proper, in violation of a 1974 cease-fire between the two countries.

Israel formally annexed the Golan Heights—which it captured from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967—in 1981, and then-President Donald Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty of the area in 2019.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Dec. 15 he planned to double the number of Israeli settlers in the Golan Heights.

“Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold onto it, cause it to blossom, and settle in it,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

The transitional government in Syria, which is led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—which is still designated by the United States as a terrorist group—has complained to the U.N. Security Council about the Israeli bombardment and incursions into the buffer zone. But it says it does not want a military confrontation with Israel.

On Dec. 14, Israel’s chief of the general staff, Herzi Halevi, visited the occupied buffer zone and, in remarks carried on the IDF website, said: “We’ve been here for almost a week, the main reason is the security of the country.

“We are here to defend along the border in the Golan Heights, northern Golan Heights, and Mount Hermon. There was a country here that was an enemy state, its army collapsed, and there is a threat that terrorist elements could reach here.

“We moved forward so that these terrorist elements will not establish themselves. Extremist terrorists will not establish themselves right next to the border.

“We are not intervening in what is happening in Syria. We have no intention of managing Syria.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.