Flaring tensions between the countries have led to fears that the Middle East could unravel into a larger war.
Israel and Iran have fired missiles at each other as tensions flaring between the two countries have lead to fears that the Middle East could unravel into a larger war.
Israeli officials said Thursday that they had fired dozens of missiles towards forces from Iran camped out in its neighbor Syria, and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said the strikes hit “almost all” of Iran’s infrastructure there.
A source told Haaretz that it was the largest attack by Israel since a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties in Syria, though the Israeli Defense Force said that there were no injuries on its side after Iran had earlier fired missiles at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Those missiles towards military sites, which Israeli said was carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard rather than proxies, came after recent attacks by Israel on Syrian territory against Iran and Iran-backed troops.
At least 15 people including eight Iranian fighters were killed by strikes Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, though Israel has not publicly claimed that attack or other similar ones in recent weeks.
The Tuesday attack came hours after President Trump announced that the U. S. was pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, which curbed the country’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions and was intensely opposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It was not immediately clear how Iran will respond to the latest strike, though Liberman threatened further escalation on Thursday morning and said that “if it rains in Israel it will pour in Iran.”
Iran blasted the Trump move away from the historic 2015 accord limiting its nuclear program, but President Houssan Rouhani said Wednesday that it was still in consultations with other partners in the deal who did sign and then pull out.
Observers including Barack Obama, under whom the U. S. joined the agreement, said that pulling out risked a new war in the Middle East.
A U. S. State Department official told the Times of Israel that “We stand with Israel in the fight against Iran’s malign activities and we strongly support Israel’s sovereign right to defend itself.”
Other countries were quicker to warn about the dangers of a situation in the tense region spiralling out of control.
French President Emmanuel Macron issued a statement calling for “deescalation” between Israel and Iran on Thursday morning.
