JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it carried out an air strike on Saturday targeting a weapons depot used by Palestinian group Hamas in southern Syria.
Israeli “fighter jets conducted an intelligence-based strike on a weapons storage facility belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in the area of Deir Ali in southern Syria”, the military said in a statement.
The army said it would “continue to dismantle Hamas’ capabilities on all of its fronts and will operate against all attempts by terrorist organisations to entrench themselves and build up their forces.”
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since its civil war broke out in 2011, mainly on Iranian-linked targets.
After a lightning rebel offensive toppled longtime Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds more air strikes on Syrian military assets in what it said was a bid to prevent them from falling into hostile hands.
Israel confirms Syria raid on Iran-funded missile factory in September
Israeli troops also entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.
Syria under Assad was a key component of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”, a loose alliance of forces united in their opposition to Israel, which included Lebanon’s Hezbollah as well as Hamas.
In October 2022, Hamas restored relations with the Syrian government after about a decade of estrangement.
The Palestinian group was long one of Syria’s closest allies, in large part due to a shared enmity towards Israel.
But it left Syria in 2012 after condemning the Assad government’s brutal suppression of protests in March 2011, which triggered the country’s descent into civil war.
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