Syrian authorities insisted Wednesday they would “never be a threat� to anyone in the region, a day after two rockets were fired from Syria at the Israeli Golan Heights for the first time in over a year.
The Israel Defense Forces said it responded with artillery fire at the source of the rockets, some 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the border with Israel. The military also carried out a series of airstrikes throughout southern Syria that it said targeted weapons belonging to the regime.
Syrian state TV reported Israeli shelling hit the western countryside of Syria’s Daraa province after the rocket launch. No injuries were reported from either strike.
Syria condemned the Israeli shelling as a “blatant violation of Syrian sovereignty� that “aggravates tensions in the region.�
Nevertheless, the Syrian foreign ministry asserted that it “has not and will not pose a threat to any party in the region.�
They denied responsibility for the rocket fire and said they could not confirm whether rockets were launched towards Israel, blaming “numerous parties… trying to destabilize the region.�
“We call on the international community to assume its responsibilities in stopping these attacks, and to support efforts aimed at restoring security and stability to Syria and the region,� the Syrian foreign ministry statement said.
A group calling itself the Mohammed Deif Brigades — named after a Hamas military leader killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza last year — claimed the attack in a post on Telegram. The group first surfaced on social media a few days before and little is known about them.
After the rocket fire, Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Israel considered “the Syrian president directly responsible for every threat and [rocket] fire toward the State of Israel.�
“The full response will come soon,� said Katz, adding that Israel “will not allow a return to a pre-October 7 reality.�
“The Syrian regime is responsible for what is happening in Syria and will continue to bear the consequences as long as hostile activity continues from its territory,� the IDF said in a statement.
The Israeli statements holding the Syrian government responsible come despite Israel insisting that the new regime have no military presence in the area and destroying Syrian military bases near the border.
It was the first alert in the Golan since a drone alarm from Iraq sounded there in November, and the first the first rocket fire from Syria since May 5, 2024, seven months before a jihadi group led by Sharaa toppled the country’s Iran-backed President Bashar Al-Assad.
While the United States, which previously placed a bounty on Sharaa’s head, has since embraced him and removed Assad-era sanctions on Syria, Israel has remained publicly leery despite reportedly seeking warmer ties with Sharaa’s administration.
Israeli military operations in Syria have persisted since Assad’s ouster, with Israel bombing what it says are military targets tied to the former regime across the country, and ground forces currently stationed in several outposts near the border with the Golan Heights.
Despite the tensions, Israel and Syria have been reported to be holding face-to-face meetings in recent weeks aimed at calming tensions and preventing conflict in the border region.
The contacts mark a significant development in ties between states that have been on opposite sides of conflict in the Middle East for decades, as the US encourages the new Islamist rulers in Damascus to establish relations with Israel and Israel eases its strikes on Syria.