Syria slams « Repeated » Israeli attacks

Syria denounced "repeated attacks" by Israel on Saturday after a drone strike hit the south of the country in the morning, just days after Israel bombed a military base in the northwest, with an Israeli minister separately rejecting American criticism over that earlier operation.

Syrian state television reported that one person was wounded when an Israeli drone struck a vehicle near the Golan Heigh, largely occupied since 1967 and annexed by Israel, publishing a photo of a damaged truck in the village of Beit Jin.

The strike "constitutes a flagrant violation of Syria's sovereignty and a clear breach of international law, and comes amid repeated Israeli attacks against Syrian territory," Syria's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Israeli military said its forces had fired on a person in southern Syria "preparing terrorist attacks in their final stage," without identifying the target or specifying any group affiliation. It claimed the individual's activities posed "an immediate threat" to Israeli soldiers.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz lashed out Saturday at US special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack over his criticism of an earlier Israeli strike on the Abu Duhur base Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had implicitly acknowledged that strike, claiming Turkey, an ally of Damascus, was seeking to establish a military presence there.

Katz said Israel had shared "intelligence with authorized parties in the United States" ahead of the strike, and that Barrack's criticism was "full of inaccuracies and positions that contradict" President Donald Trump's line, according to a post on X.

Barrack had condemned Tuesday's bombing as an "unnecessary escalation."

Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on Syria since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, toppled by an Islamist-led coalition. It has also deployed troops in the UN-monitored buffer zone that once separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan, where it claims a "security zone" it intends to maintain.

Visiting troops in the area Wednesday, Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the army was "monitoring developments on the Syrian front" and would not allow "hostile forces to establish themselves" along Israel's borders.