Netanyahu confirms Israeli strike on Syrian Golan Heights

Binyamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel launched strikes on southern Syria on Monday evening, marking a further departure from Israel's policy of maintaining ambiguity about its attacks in Syria.

MENA

2 min read

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13 February, 2019

Netanyahu confirmed the Israeli strike on Tuesday [Getty]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Tuesday that Israel carried out a military strike on Syria's Golan Heights.

Netanyahu's statement about the Monday evening strikes marked a further departure from Israel's policy of maintaining ambiguity about its attacks in Syria.

"We are working all the time to block Iran. We operate every day, including yesterday, against Iran and its efforts to entrench itself in the region," he said before flying to Poland's capital of Warsaw for a US-sponsored Middle East conference.

Syria's government on Monday said that Israeli army tank shelling on hit the southern Syrian province of Quneitra that borders the occupied Golan Heights.

"The Israeli aggressor has targeted a destroyed hospital in Quneitra and monitoring stations," the official SANA news agency reported.

A military source cited by the agency said the shellfire caused only material damage.

Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights war monitor said seven shells struck regime positions in Quneitra, including a surveillance post.

The Britain-based monitoring group said the attack caused casualties, without giving any figures.

The Syrian regime's army regained control of the southern part of Quneitra in mid-2018, five years after rebel fighters had overrun it.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.