Israel carried out a heavy wave of airstrikes overnight on Syria’s coastal region, a war monitor said early on Monday, as the Israeli military continued to pound Syria in a bid to destroy the country’s military assets after rebels seized power.
The overnight strikes targeted former Syrian Army positions including air defense sites and missile warehouses, according to the war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organization based in Britain that has long tracked the conflict in Syria. Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike also targeted radars in Deir al-Zour’s military airport in the country’s east, the Observatory said.
The “successive strikes” along the Syrian coast — home to Russian naval bases — amounted to “the most violent strikes in the area” since 2012, according to the Observatory. It said there were 18 airstrikes, which were particularly powerful because they were consecutive and detonated missiles in warehouses, leading to secondary explosions.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the strikes. Israeli officials have previously said that the campaign in Syria is an effort to keep military equipment out of the hands of “extremists,” after an alliance of rebel groups ousted the Assad regime earlier this month. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the latest strikes, the Observatory said.
Israel has struck Syria more than 450 times since the collapse of the Assad government, according to the Observatory, destroying Syria’s navy and dozens of air bases, ammunition depots and other military equipment.
Israel’s military has also seized and occupied an expanse of territory in Syria over the de facto border between the two countries, including on the Syrian side of the strategic Mt. Hermon. Israel has given no timeline for its departure, apart from saying that it would stay until its security demands were met.
On Sunday, the Israeli government unanimously approved plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expand settlements in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, part of an $11 million scheme to double the population in the area. The move was necessary, the prime minister’s office said, because a “new front” had opened up on Israel’s border with Syria after the fall of the Assad government.
Israel seized the Golan Heights during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 and it is considered illegally occupied under international law.
The head of the group leading the rebel coalition that now governs Syria, Ahmed al-Shara, said in an interview on Saturday with Syria TV, a pro-opposition channel, that Israel was using pretexts to justify “unwarranted” territorial seizures in Syria.
Still, he said, Syria could not afford any further conflict and was instead focused on diplomatic solutions.
“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations,” Mr. al-Shara said. “The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”
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