Iran's surrogate: Syria and the Constant Attacks on Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                              Missiles in Syria pointed at Israel since 2009; 

                                              

Since the Civil War began in 2011, the regime of Syria's  Bashar Assad has been preoccupied with survival and the main threat to Israel has been the danger of a spillover across the border.  Israel was particularly concerned with the possibility of radical Islamist or Iranian forces gaining a foothold along the Golan Heights or replacing Assad. By August 2018, however, the regime no longer appeared in danger and Assad’s army, with the indispensable help of Russian and Iranian forces, recaptured the area along Israel’s northern border.(10) This has been bad news for now Syria has become an arm for Iran who has wanted to wipe out Israel.   

Rockets and missiles from Gaza are supplied to these Palestinian terrorists by Syria, so the reference below is counting all shot into Israel.  Just in 2021, there has been 46 rockets.  In 2020 there were 133 rockets shot into Israel.  In 2019 there were a whopping 643 shot into Israel.  2018 had 421 rockets and mortars shot into Israel, 2017 had 56 rockets and mortars shot at Israel, and so on.  

Back in 2009, the record show 25 different rockets and mortars and an IED were fired in 2 weeks at Israel.  IEDs may use artillery shells or conventional high-explosive charges as their explosive load as well as homemade explosives.

Jan 20 - Feb 8

The following violations occurred: February 8 - Rocket fell in kibbutz parking lot in northwest Negev. Another fell south of Ashkelon. February 6 - Rocket fired from the area of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip hit  western Negev. Another rocket fell south of Ashkelon. February 3 - A 122mm Grad rocket fell between two buildings in the city of Ashkelon. February 1 - Six mortar shells fired into Israeli territory, armed Palestinians shot at IDF force near Kissufim in western Negev and four rockets were fired at western Negev towns and villages. January 31 - A rocket fell south of Ashkelon. January 29 - A rocket fell in an open area near Sderot. January 28 - A rocket fell in Israeli territory near the southern Gaza Strip. January 27 - An IED was detonated against IDF patrol north of Kissufim. January 25 - Terrorist squad tried to carry out rocket attack against Israel. One rocket fired, fell inside Gaza Strip. January 20 - Eleven mortar shells fired at IDF forces and into Israeli territory and terrorists shot at IDF force near border security fence in central Gaza Strip.

" The range of our missiles covers all of Israel today.  That means the fall of the Zionist regime, which will certainly come soon. "— General Mohammad Ali Jafari, (November 2014) Jafari  is a former commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps from 2007 to 2019. He was appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on September 1, 2007, succeeding Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi. (13)

What I've noticed is that warnings are followed up with a lot of action.  

There has been more than enough reason for Israel to go in and try to stop Syria in the only way they seem to understand; to retaliate for all the shooting they have done to Israel. 

                                                                           

Iran's Supreme Leader has called Israel a cancerous tumor, as told on May 22, 2020.  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speech came on what Iranian authorities calls Quds Day, which is marked every year in solidarity with the Palestinians.  Iran's supreme leader has called on Palestinians to continue their uprising against Israel, suggesting the Israeli government was a "cancerous tumor." (14) This is another showing of their assistance to the Palestinians.   

                                                                        

An Israeli walks past bomb shelters in the southern Israeli town of Sderot. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

The conflict between Israel and Iran emerged from the shadows early Thursday morning, May 10, 2018.  Forces allegedly backed by Iran fired 20 rockets from Syria into Israel’s Golan Heights positions. Israel replied with 50 airstrikes against Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria.

Israel is worried about Iranian-backed forces like Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon. It claims they have 100,000 to 150,000 rockets. To keep them from getting more advanced missiles, Israel periodically launches airstrikes there.

That’s also why, from 2005 to 2014, Israel spent US$384 million to reinforce buildings. By 2014, more than 70 per cent of homes had shelters. More shelters have been built since then, especially in the south. The northern region is less well-equipped.                     

                                                         Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel   Credit: Yanai Yechiel                                 

"After retirement on August 10, 2017, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, career IDS officer for the past 40 years, told  Haaretz about preparing for an attack on Iran, carrying out scores of airstrikes on Hezbollah and averting clashes with Russian jets in Syria."   Iran had turned Syria into their proxy state, using Syria for staging attacks on Israel since it was so much closer.  

                                                                 

              Israel Katz (Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל כַּץ‎ Yisrael Katz, born 21 September 1955) is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Likud and Minister of Finance.  He's also been Minister of Agriculture, transportation, Intelligence, and Foreign Affairs.   

  Israeli Intelligence Minister, Israel Katz, used a speech to give a more general summary of Syria missions, prompted by a military briefing given to local media earlier in the day.   Israel Katz was raised on moshav Kfar Ahim. He drafted into the IDF in 1973. He volunteered as a paratrooper in the Paratroopers Brigade. He served as a soldier and a squad leader.                                          

 “Only just now it was published - in the name of military sources, so I can quote it too - that in the last two years Israel has taken military action more than 200 times within Syria itself,” Katz told a conference hosted by the IDC Herzliya college. 

In May 2015, Israel Katz was appointed Minister of Transportation and Road Safety and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy. In February 2019, he was appointed Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and on 29 May 2019 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.  (6)

 A tweet cited a 2018 article by the Reuters news agency in which then-intelligence minister Israel Katz said that Israel had carried out over 200 airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria over the previous two years.  (6)                                                       

 On 2 August 2005, a rocket apparently launched by Islamic Jihad killed a 6-year-old boy and his father in Beit Hanoun. On 26 December 2008 a mortar aimed at Israel killed two Palestinian girls in the Gaza Strip, aged 5 and 12.  Israel has protected its citizens with having bomb shelters in every conceivable apartment building and schools.  They have warning systems that pierce the air.  Being the close proximity to an enemy who shoots rockets and mortars at civilians, Israelis have something like 15-30 seconds to run for cover. (18)  It's hard on the elderly and it doesn't help anyone with a heart problem to hear the piercing wailing siren.  But it prevents deaths.  For every rocket fired, there was a siren and disruption in one's lives.                                                                                                                

 "Israel, which monitors neighboring Syria intensively, has long alleged that Iran came to assist the Damascus government, in part, to set up a permanent garrison there, effectively forming an extended anti-Israel front with Hezbollah in Lebanon."  (7)

This is Iran's method of making Lebanon their proxy, fighting against Israel for Iran.  "According to regional sources, Israel began carrying out military strikes in Syria in 2013 against suspected arms transfers and deployments by Iranian forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies, both Damascus’s partners in Syria’s civil war."(7)

Israel watches air traffic to thwart arms smuggling to Hezbollah through Syria and to other terrorist organizations in other sectors. Shortly after the civil war erupted in Syria, in 2011, Israel demarcated its red lines in the north: It would respond with military force to every attack on its territory from Syria and would act to disrupt the transfer of “tie-breaking” weapons systems to Lebanon. 

The fact that Israel pursued this policy actively without getting involved in the war in Syria, and in the general upheaval in the Middle East, is probably the most significant achievement that the successive Netanyahu governments can credit themselves with in recent years.(7)

                                                                                                             

  Iran IRGC Quds force Gen Qassem Soleimani visited Russia and met Putin.

The assassination of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general, took place on 3 January 2020 when the United States launched a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport that targeted and killed Soleimani while purportedly on his way to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in Baghdad, Iraq.  

Wikipedia wrote that  Qasem Soleimani, Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC);  collaborated with Russia to sabotage the JCPOA;  The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal; an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program reached in Vienna on 14 July 2015, between Iran and the P5+1 (the five (1)   

This shows that Syria is not only under the thumb of Iran, but indirectly,  Iran may be under the thumb of Russia as well.  

. Jordan often accuses Iran as the cause of instability across the Middle East."

    

References

1 https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-rocket-and-mortar-attacks-against-israel

2009 to present

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_International

6. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/MAGAZINE-we-prevented-israel-from-going-to-war-outgoing-air-force-chief-says-1.5445186

7. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-israel-syria-iran/israel-says-struck-iranian-targets-in-syria-200-times-in-last-two-years-idUSKCN1LK2D7

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Eshel 

9. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/28/irans-rouhani-warns-against-division-as-fallout-of-leaked-audiot

10.https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/syria-military-threat-to-israel

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Katz#:~:text=He%20was%20raised%20on%20moshav,soldier%20and%20a%20squad%20leader.

12. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/iran-military-threat-to-israel

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Ali_Jafari

14. https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-supreme-leader-israel-cancerous-tumor-khamenei/30628754.html

15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At2UbRrS5u8

16.https://www.ribonut.co.il/BlogPostID.aspx?BlogPostId=590&lang=2
17.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Jordan_relations#:~:text=Islamic%20Republic%20of%20Iran%20and,has%20an%20embassy%20in%20Tehran.

18. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/world/middleeast/israeli-towns-emergency-routine-30-seconds-to-run-for-cover.html