The IDF deployed an Iron Dome anti-missile system
in central Israel as a precautionary measure Wednesday
in light of Syrian threats to target Ben Gurion
Airport.
Syrian Ambassador to the U.N. Bashar Ja’afari
warned on Tuesday that his country would hit Israel’s
major international gateway if the Security Council
does not stop Israel’s airstrikes.
However, there is little chance of Syria following
through on its threat, according to Major General
(res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security
advisor.
“The Syrians have missiles that can reach Ben
Gurion Airport,” the current senior fellow at the
Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies said on
Radio 103FM Thursday. “They have anti-aircraft
missiles that can damage planes coming out of
Ben-Gurion Airport. But the relationship between us
and Syria is such that a Syrian attempt would give us
permission to strike them so hard that the Syrian
regime would be over, so I don’t see the Syrians
risking such an incident.”
Despite the fact that Iranians shot a
surface-to-surface missile Sunday at Israel from
Syrian territory that was intercepted successfully by
the Iron Dome, Amidror does not believe that Tehran
would escalate the situation. Saying that tough talk
in the Middle East doesn’t translate into action, he
noted, “Once it comes to support, one doesn’t help the
other…. The Iranians in Syria have no ability to back
the Syrians. This is what we’re fighting for and what
we want to prevent.”
Despite the lull in airborne activity over the past
few days, IDF troops operating clandestinely near the
northern border came under small arms fire from the
Syrian side on Wednesday night. According to Ynet, the
attackers had been setting up an ambush near Quneitra,
in the same spot where armed men had attempted to
cross the 1974 cease-fire line almost a month ago. The
IDF returned fire, and no casualties were reported.
Israeli Air Force jets hit dozens of targets in
Syria at the beginning of the week, most of them
linked to Iranian military assets. One was a weapons
depot near the Damascus airport, confirmed as such
when numerous secondary explosions were heard after
the strike.