Israeli strike near Damascus 'declaration of war': Syria

Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister says airstrikes were a "declaration of war" and that the government would retaliate in its own time

 

Israeli aircraft attacked military sites on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria charged, sending a fireball over the capital in what a top Syrian official said was tantamount to a declaration of war.

Israel did not confirm involvement in the assault on Sunday that rocked the Syrian capital. Jonathan Spyer, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, said the Jewish state was betting it could strike because Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is too mired in his own civil war to make good on threats of reprisal.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mekdad told CNN on Sunday that the airstrikes were a “declaration of war” and that the government would retaliate in its own time. The country’s information minister, Omran al-Zoubi, later said in a statement on state TV that the Israeli aggression opens doors to all possibilities and that Syria would use “any means” to protect its people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t address the attacks in opening remarks to his weekly Cabinet session. The Israeli leader, though, delayed a scheduled trip to China for at least two hours to convene his inner security Cabinet.

The Israeli army said it had deployed two Iron Dome missile defence batteries in the north, and the Ynet website reported that Arkia Israeli Airlines Ltd had suspended all flights from the northern city of Haifa to the southern city of Eilat at the army’s order. It did not say where it got the information and the military did not have an immediate comment.

Israel is also suspected of carrying out an airstrike in Syria on May 3. The Associated Press, citing unidentified Israeli officials, said yesterday that the attack targeted a shipment of missiles thought to be bound for Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Israel and the US consider Hezbollah a terrorist group.

“Apparently the Syrians and the Iranians have crossed a red line of the Israelis and that means that weapons of an advanced nature, probably missiles, have been moved from Iran to Syria with intentions of moving them to Hezbollah,” Senator John McCain, told Fox News Sunday. “The whole thing is escalating. I think that it will probably put more pressure on this administration.”

The Syrian civil war has claimed more than 70,000 lives and one million refugees have fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and other countries, according to United Nations estimates.