Israel Bombs Syria, Kills Top Iranian General and Top Hezbollah Commander

Israel Bombs Syria, Kills Top Iranian General and Top Hezbollah Commander


In yet another brazen attack on national sovereignty and human rights, Israel has once again launched a bombing mission onto Syrian soil in defense of death squads and terrorists that it has been supporting – along with the United States, France, and the UK (NATO) – since the beginning of the Syrian crisis.

Some reports attribute the attack to missiles fired from helicopters while others suggest that the attack took place using Israeli drones.

Regardless, the attack took place close to the occupied Golan Heights area in southern Syria. Both the Hezbollah and Iranian officials were in Syria to investigate Israeli/terrorist connections as well as to advise Syrian troops.

While Israel has launched a number of airstrikes inside Syria in support of ISIS and al-Qaeda in the past, targets have largely consisted of Syrian military positions, weapons storage areas, and the like. These recent strikes, however, bring a more international dimension to the table as they have claimed the life of a top Iranian General. The attack also took the life of a number of Hezbollah fighters.

Iran has publicly confirmed the death of General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi as well as the fact that he was killed in an Israeli airstrike inside Syria. As is typical, the Israeli government has not publicly confirmed the death or the airstrike operations. However, citing “anonymous intelligence sources,” the Israeli news media has reported that not only did the strikes take place but that they were an attempt to foil a plan by Hezbollah to attack Israel.

Eyal Ben-Reuven, a retired Major General from the Israeli military, stated in a conference call to mainstream media journalists that the very presence of such a “high-ranking Iranian figure alongside Hezbollah commanders near the Golan Heights suggested that they may have been ‘planning an operation against Israel on a high level.’” Neither Ben-Reuven, the anonymous intelligence officials, or the Israeli government offered any further elaboration or evidence of their claims.

In addition to Allahdadi and the Hezbollah fighters, Jihad Mughniyeh, was also killed. Mughniyeh was the son of top Hezbollah military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who was himself assassinated in Damascus in 2008, an incident that is widely attributed to Israel. It has also been reported that a senior Hezbollah commander was also killed in the airstrikes.

As mentioned, the recent airstrike operation by Israel adds yet another dangerous international dimension to the situation already threatening to bubble over the borders of a number of different countries. Israel’s repeated provocations and acts of war have hitherto have been conducted without response or retaliation by the Syrian government or Hezbollah. However, the airstrikes that occurred on Sunday now put pressure on Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran to make some type of response to a country that has repeatedly shown no respect for national borders or human life – both in and out of its own borders.

In addition, Israel has been known for some time to have been arming, coordinating, and directing terrorist death squads to fight inside Syria. Indeed, the stated reason for the Iranian and Hezbollah senior officials’ presence in the area to begin with was to investigate the level of coordination between Israel and the death squad jihadists operating in Syria.

With the history of Israel’s military and geopolitical machinations in mind, it would thus be reasonable to question whether or not the attack was anything but planned from the beginning for the sole purpose of killing the high-ranking officials.

Regardless, Israel’s connection and coordination with the terrorists operating in Syria is well known and well documented.

Indeed, it has been well known for quite some time that Israel has been providing wounded Syrian rebels with medical treatment inside Israel so that they can continue the Jihad against the secular government of Bashar al-Assad. According to Colum Lynch of The Cable (the news wing of the Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Policy),
In the past three months [April-June 2014], battle-hardened Syrian rebels have transported scores of wounded Syrians across a cease-fire line that has separated Israel from Syria since 1974, according to a 15-page report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the work of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). Once in Israel, they receive medical treatment in a field clinic before being sent back to Syria, where, presumably, some will return to carry on the fight.
U.N. blue helmets responsible for monitoring the decades-old cease-fire report observing armed opposition groups "transferring 89 wounded persons" from Syrian territory into Israel, where they were received by members of the Israel Defense Forces, according to the report. The IDF returned 21 Syrians to armed opposition members back in Syria, including the bodies of two who died.
Later in the article, Lynch mentions the fact that Israel has provided such medical assistance to Syrian rebels since at least as far back as February 2014. Realistically, however, such assistance was being provided even further back. Lynch writes that Israel provided the medical treatment for at least a year even at the time of the writing of his article, i.e. as far back as at least June 2013.

Even more telling is that, in February, 2014, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actually visited one of the medical facilities in which the Syrian rebels were being treated and posed for a photo op shaking hands with a death squad fighter.

A recent series of reports (March 2013 – November 2014) was also released by the United Nations observers in the Golan Heights and submitted to the United Nations Security Council apparently corroborates those connections. Indeed, the reports claimed that, at least for the past 18 months, the Israel Defense Forces have been in regular contact with “Syrian rebels,” including members of the Islamic State.

According to Israeli news agency, Haaretz, the UN reports detailed several instances where close ties between the Syrian death squads and the Israeli military have been demonstrated.

As the International Business Times writes,
According to the UN reports, a person wounded on 15 September "was taken by armed members of the opposition across the ceasefire line, where he was transferred to a civilian ambulance escorted by an IDF vehicle."
Moreover, from 9-19 November, the "UNDOF observed at least 10 wounded persons being transferred by armed members of the opposition from the Bravo side across the ceasefire line to IDF."

As per the details released by the Israel's health ministry, so far some 1,000 Syrians have been treated in four Israeli hospitals. Besides the civilians, some are members of the secular Free Syrian Army rebel group.

Although initially claiming that it only treated civilians, Israel was forced to walk back from those claims somewhat after the release of the UN report. When asked by i24news whether or not Israel had treated members of ISIS or al-Nusra, an Israeli spokesman stated “In the past two years the Israel Defence Forces have been engaged in humanitarian, life-saving aid to wounded Syrians, irrespective of their identity."

Of course, the assistance provided by Israel to the death squads was not isolated to mere medical treatment according to the report. As Haaretz states,
Observers remarked in the report distributed on June 10 that they identified IDF soldiers on the Israeli side handing over two boxes to armed Syrian opposition members on the Syrian side.

The last report distributed to Security Council members, on December 1, described another meeting between IDF soldiers and Syrian opposition members that two UN representatives witnessed on October 27 some three kilometers east of Moshav Yonatan. The observers said they saw two IDF soldiers on the eastern side of the border fence opening the gate and letting two people enter Israel. The report, contrary to previous ones, did not note that the two exiting Syria were injured or why they entered Israel.
This specific event is of particular interest in light of what happened on the Syrian side of the border in the exact same region. According to the report, UN observers stated that tents were set up about 300 meters from the Israeli position for some 70 families of Syrian deserters. The Syrian army sent a letter of complaint to UNDOF in September, claiming this tent camp was a base for “armed terrorists” crossing the border into Israel.

While the connections between Israel and Islamic terrorism, particularly the terrorists wreaking havoc across Syria, is by no means a new revelation, it is becoming much harder for the settler state to hide its complicity as well as its direct involvement in the funding, directing, arming, training, and control of terrorism across the Middle East including such terrorism within its own borders.

Brandon Turbeville