Israel strikes Syrian military in response to rocket fire, as Hezbollah continues counting its losses

The Israeli army confirmed that it carried out airstrikes inside Syria overnight in response to earlier rocket fire against Israeli communities in the Golan. The airstrike response was made amid concerns that these ongoing skirmishes on the Lebanese border will expand to Syria, as well.

Israeli fighter jets bombed military infrastructure and positions used to launch mortar bombs belonging to the Syrian army after it had already shelled the source of the rocket fire earlier on Tuesday.

Two rockets were fired at northern Israel from Syria and fell in open areas, setting off siren alerts in the Golan Heights communities of Neot Golan, Bnei Yehuda and Givat Yoav.

Eight Syrian soldiers were killed and seven wounded in the Israeli airstrikes in the area near the city of Dar’a, according to Syrian media reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that 11 soldiers were killed, including four officers, and that a missile storage facility and an anti-aircraft radar station were destroyed.

Meanwhile, for the first time in over a week, the IDF did not perform any overnight attacks against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

On Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces thwarted at least five Hezbollah cells during its attempts to attack Israeli positions, killing several terrorists without incurring losses.

Hezbollah suffered severe blows by Israeli strikes during these last days, losing an estimated 40 terrorists in the conflict, so far. On Tuesday alone, the terror organization announced the death of nine of its members, representing the organization’s largest loss of life in one day.

Inside Lebanon, several politicians have tried to calm the spirits in an attempt to prevent Hezbollah from officially entering the war between Israel and the Hamas terror organization in the Gaza Strip.

“The prime minister of the transitional government in Lebanon and the foreign minister are talking to international contacts and within Lebanon in order to keep Lebanon out of the war,” Lebanon’s representative at the UN, Salim Badura, said in his speech to the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, meanwhile, met with the Hamas Deputy Leader Saleh al-Arouri and the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad Nakhaleh, in Beirut.

The three arch-terrorists discussed the ongoing war against Israel and possible actions by the pro-Iranian camp to reach a “victory in Gaza” and stop “Israeli aggression” in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel’s Kan news reported on Wednesday morning.