Last Tuesday, an Iran-backed Shiite militia in Syria launched four heavy rockets at Israel in retaliation for presumed Israeli strikes on Iranian positions in Syria and Iraq. While the rockets were successfully shot down, the IDF retaliated with an extensive bombardment, destroying dozens of targets in Syria, including several anti-aircraft batteries. Ron Ben-Yishai explains why Jerusalem chose a broader-than-usual response:
The rockets were indubitably targeted at Israeli population centers, and had the rockets not been intercepted, they could have caused civilian casualties and great damage. All these details are important in order to understand why the Israel Air Force struck in Syria on such an unusually large scale.
The attack was intended to serve as a warning to three groups: the Iranians and their proxies operating in Syria; Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his army, who grant complete freedom of action and air defense to Iran; and the Kremlin, which has not met its commitment to Israel to ward off the Iranians and their proxies from the Israeli border.
The Syrians can see that Israel is able to destroy their surface-to-air missile batteries as they fire at the planes and arms that Israel launches at Iranian targets. Some of these state-of-the-art interception batteries were purchased for hefty sums from Russia. Their destruction weakens the Syrian army and damages its prestige and—above all—its ability to defend Syria’s territory.
As for the Russians, Israel sends them two messages: first, it is highlighting their failure to uphold their promise to keep [Iran and its proxies] away from the Israel-Syria border and pressuring them to follow through on this commitment, while making clear that otherwise it will carry out the task itself. But the main message behind Wednesday’s attack was to tell the Russians that until the Iranians and their henchmen cease their attempt to establish a front against Israel from Syria’s territory, the Kremlin will not be able to achieve a ceasefire in the civil war in Syria.
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