Israeli ground troops conducted a commando raid overnight Wednesday-Thursday on a Syrian site it had already bombed on the two previous days, Syrian state media reported, in a major operation said to have included helicopters and fighter jets as well as dozens of ground troops.
Israel first struck the site outside Damascus on Tuesday, killing several Syrian soldiers, according to Damascus’s foreign ministry, and bombed it again on Wednesday, according to state television.
A Syrian defense ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the site was a former Syrian military base in Tal Maneh, near Kisweh.
Following the second attack on Wednesday, state media said that Israeli troops were flown into the area to carry out a raid, “the details of which are not yet known, amid continued intensive reconnaissance flights.”
According to two Syrian army sources, a unit of the Israeli army carried out an airborne landing on a strategic hilltop southwest of Damascus and conducted a two-hour operation before leaving the area.
They said the troops landed near Jabal Manea, which was once a major air defense base operated by Iran before being destroyed by Israel after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
A number of troops from the new Syrian army are positioned at the base, the sources said.
According to a Syrian source who spoke to Al Jazeera, the raid involved four helicopters and two fighter jets, as well as dozens of soldiers.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, reported that the site had weapons used by the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, a major ally of former Syrian ruler Assad.
The Observatory said the Israeli ground raid was the first of its kind since the fall of Assad in an Islamist-led rebel offensive in December.
The increased Israeli military activity in Syria comes as the two countries are engaged in “advanced” US-mediated talks on easing tensions in southern Syria, with Damascus seeking a security deal that could open the door to wider political negotiations.
According to Hebrew media reports earlier this week, Damascus and Jerusalem are closing in on understandings, and the deal in discussion would be based on the disengagement lines that the two sides agreed to in 1974 after the Yom Kippur War a year earlier.
After the reports of Wednesday night’s raid, Defense Minister Israel Katz declared Thursday morning on X that Israeli forces “are operating on all battle fronts day and night for the security of Israel.”
He did not indicate what he was referring to, though the post came minutes after Syrian media reported the commando raid.
Asked for comment, an Israeli military spokesperson said: “We do not comment on foreign reports.”
Israel’s strikes on Tuesday had reportedly targeted Syrian soldiers who, while on patrol, discovered “surveillance and eavesdropping devices” reportedly belonging to Israel.
Syrian state media said that additional Israeli strikes prevented other troops from reaching the area until Wednesday evening, when other soldiers were able to retrieve the bodies of the soldiers killed the day before, and “destroy some of the (surveillance) systems by targeting them with the appropriate weapons.”
The Syrian government on Wednesday condemned “the recent Israeli attacks on its territory,” but had yet to comment on the reported Israeli ground raid.
It also condemned what it said was an incursion on Monday by IDF soldiers into a town in the Quneitra countryside, their “arrest campaigns against civilians,” and their “announcement of the continuation of their illegal presence on the summit of Mount Hermon and the buffer zone.”
“These aggressive practices constitute a flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international law, and relevant Security Council resolutions, and constitute a direct threat to peace and security in the region,” Damascus added.
The IDF has been deployed at nine posts inside southern Syria since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, mostly within a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the border between the countries.
Israeli forces have been operating in areas up to 15 kilometers (some nine miles) deep into Syria, including Beit Jinn, aiming to capture weapons that Israel says could pose a threat to the country if they fall into the hands of hostile forces.
Amid ongoing US-mediated talks between Israel and Syria, Katz vowed Tuesday that IDF troops would remain in Syria to defend the north, saying Israel’s need to maintain a presence there is a “central lesson from the events of October 7.”