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Is Assad shifting strategy on Israel?

Contrary to Israel’s typical low profile on operations in Syrian skies, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman warned that if Damascus fires any more missiles against IDF jets, Israel will destroy its air defense system.
Israeli soliders patrol near an Iron Dome defence system, designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, on January 20, 2015, two days after an Israeli air strike killed six Hezbollah members in the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights. The strike on Syria killed an Iranian general, Tehran confirmed on January 19, as thousands of supporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah gathered to bury one of the six fighters killed in the same rai

In an unexpected incident, Israel activated its Arrow missile-defense system March 17, targeting a fragment of a Syrian anti-aircraft missile.

This incident forced Israel to publicly admit (a first such admission in a long time) that the targeted Syrian missiles were aimed at Israel Defense Forces (IDF) jets that had previously attacked strategic weapons deep in Syria, weapons that were intended for Hezbollah. Forty-eight hours later, another airstrike took place, hitting a vehicle traveling between Quneitra and Khan Arnabeh in the Syrian Golan Heights. The vehicle was destroyed and its driver, Yasser al-Sayed, was killed on the spot. Sayed was a member of a pro-regime militia and had been close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Evidently, from the Syrian Golan, he had tried to carry out Assad- and Hezbollah-inspired terror attacks against Israel. Israel, for its part, adopted a policy of ambiguity and did not address this incident. But the media are convinced this was Israel’s second airstrike in Syria in two days; that someone in Jerusalem is trying to change the fragile rules of the game that reign on Israel’s northern front. There are those who think that this "someone" is not even trying to avoid a flare-up; perhaps, on the contrary, he is even trying to cause one.

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