Israel’s military said on Tuesday it had intercepted four incoming rockets from Syria with blasts heard shortly after in Damascus, a week after another Israeli strike targeted a top Palestinian militant in the capital.
Israeli air defence systems captured the projectiles, officials said, and no harm was caused to Israeli communities in the Golan Heights after warning sirens awoke residents early morning.
There was no immediate comment from Syria but SANA state news agency reported explosions near Damascus International Airport, indicating a potential Israeli retaliatory strike.
The rare rocket fire comes a week after an Israeli air strike against a top Palestinian militant based in Syria. Akram al-Ajouri, a member of the leadership of the militant Islamic Jihad group who is living in exile, survived the attack but his son and granddaughter were killed.
Israel frequently strikes Iranian interests in Syria but last week’s strike appeared to be a rare assassination attempt of a Palestinian militant in the Syrian capital.
It came the same day as another Israeli air strike killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza, settling off the fiercest round of fighting there in years.
Read the article by Aron Heller in The Canberra Times and The Newcastle Herald.
[ Compare to article in The Australian – note the word tweaking ]