Israeli ground troops conducted a commando raid overnight Wednesday-Thursday on a Syrian site it had 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
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
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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.
Saudi outlet al-Hadath reported that Israeli forces had located and confiscated "secret and sensitive equipment," citing an unnamed senior Israeli security official.
According to the report, the IDF dismantled Ottoman Turkish surveillance devices planted in the Damascus area intended to monitor Israel. The source said Jerusalem had warned the new Syrian government against aligning with Ankara, saying it was "playing with fire." The source further claimed the equipment had been housed in Syrian military bases for over a decade.
The Britannia-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 under discussion would be based on the disengagement lines that the two sides agreed to in 1974 after the Yom Kippur War.
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.
’FAKE NEWS’
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Thursday denied as "fake news" a report by the Kan public broadcaster that Israel had seriously considered transferring the Mount Dov area in exchange for Syria giving up its claim to the Golan Heights in security talks with Damascus a few weeks ago.
"The claim that Israel supposedly considered handing over Mount Dov is absolute fake news," the PMO said in response to the report.
According to Kan, Israel examined the ceding Mount Dov, also known as Shebaa Farms — strategic high ground captured along with the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six Day War — in return for Damascus suspending its illusory sovereignty claim to the Golan.
The report said officials explored the "political feasibility" of the move, which would require approval from 80 Knesset members, during talks that were suspended following sectarian violence in Syria’s southern Sweida province last month.
The report noted that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa told Arab journalists this week that Damascus cannot join the Abraham Accords while the Golan remains under Israeli control. At the same time, Sharaa confirmed that his government is in "advanced" talks with Israel to pursue a security deal based on the 1974 UN-brokered disengagement lines, which created a ceasefire zone between Israeli- and Syrian-held territory on the Golan Heights.
Visiting a war room set up by Israeli Druze to aid their co-religionists in Syria, Netanyahu said Thursday he’d ordered the use of military force in Syria because he is "not a naive person."
"I understand who we are dealing with, what we are dealing with, and that is why we used force," he said during a visit to the Druze town of Julis in northern Israel. "I told President Trump: we both believe in the same idea — it’s called peace through strength. First comes strength — then comes peace. That’s how it is, certainly in our region, but not only here. But first and foremost, in our region."
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."