Syrian state news agency SANA has reported an Israeli missile attack on Syrian army posts in Tel Al-Hara in the Daraa Governorate on Wednesday, July 24. According to the SANA report, the attack took place at 1:30 am in Daraa’s western region “causing only material damages”.
The reports were correlated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR — a UK-based organisation), who reported Syrian air defence systems activating around 1:00 am in the skies above Rif Dimashq, Al-Quneitra and Daraa’s western countryside, claiming the attacks were targeted at “regime forces and militiamen loyal to...Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities.” SOHR claims the attacks were ‘probably Israeli’.
This is definitely the most tense its been between #Syria and #Israel recently
— Danny Makki (@Dannymakkisyria) July 23, 2019
An extinct volcano, the Tel Al-Hara hill is a strategic position that overlooks parts of the Israel-controlled Golan Heights. Till 2014, it was a Russian radar outpost but the following years saw it switch hands multiple times — it was captured by anti-government rebels in 2014, briefly recaptured by Syrian forces in 2018, recaptured by rebels again and then finally surrendered to government forces that same year.
Quneitra, a nearby town that was also allegedly targeted, has been abandoned town since the 1974 war when Israeli forces briefly occupied the region. It has often been a site of conflict between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, with attacks and counter-attacks taking place there in 2015. An alleged Israeli air strike on an Hezbollah convoy in 2015 (dubbed the Mazraat Amal incident) was followed by a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli convoy ten days later (dubbed the Sheba Farms incident).
Israeli media, Ynet news, alleges that the hill was used by Iranian and Russian forces to observe rebel positions in Daraa — and that the hill was long used to observe deep into Israeli territory.
Since May, there have been six incidents of reported strikes between Israel and Syria, according to Haaretz. The months of June and July saw multiple reports of attacks betweens Israel and Syria. In June, SANA reported that two Israeli missiles were shot down over Tel Al-Hara. On Jul 16, Israel shot down a drone in the region with a Patriot missile. On July 22, a Hezbollah operative named Mashour Zidan was killed in his car, with contrasting reports saying it was either an Israeli air strike or Zidan’s own Improvised Explosive device (IED) that caused the explosion.
The Golan Heights were under Syrian control until the Yom Kippur war in 1974, when Israel seized two-thirds of the region. Syria has since controlled the Eastern part of the hills while Israel holds the West. Israel and Syria, formally, have been in a state of war since 1948 — though a ceasefire has been in place since 1974. The two countries do not maintain diplomatic relations, and incidents between the two only grew more frequent after the Syrian Civil War.
In March, US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation asserting the Golan Heights to be under Israeli sovereignty, holding up Israel’s right to self-defence in the region, a move that was rejected by EU nations as well as by Arab countries.
