Tag Archives: Israel Defense Force
IDF deploys sixth Iron Dome battery
Newest missile-defense cannon first to be manned solely by reserves soldiers; six more Iron Domes planned
An Iron Dome battery deployed near Eilat, which came under fire last week. (photo credit: Flash90)
ne day after a rocket was fired from Sinai toward Eilat, and amid mounting tension in Egypt, the IDF last Wednesday brought a sixth Iron Dome anti-missile battery online, boosting the country’s burgeoning air-defense array, it was confirmed Sunday.
The newest battery is the first to be operated solely by reserves soldiers and is part of a plan to introduce further reserves “one after another,” according to Col. Zvika Haimovitch, the commander of the IAF’s Aerial Defense Division’s Active Defense Wing.
“This weekend we introduced an additional Iron Dome battery, based on reserves manpower, which will protect the citizens of Israel in times of emergency,” Haimovitch told the army’s weekly Bamahaneh magazine.
The short-range, air-defense system was first introduced in March 2011, after years of contemplation and deep-seated reluctance to both the concept and the notion of an expensive rocket-defense system.
Israeli Bombs Over Syria, Part Two
Daniel McAdams
Lew Rockwell Blog
May 5, 2013
For the second day in a row, the Israeli government is reported to have bombed Syria — this time near Damascus — according to reporting by theWashington Post.
As the Washington Post — itself deeply in the ideological pockets of the left-neocons — concludes, this is Israel’s response to American skepticism over its lurid tales, without evidence, of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government:
“The attack Friday coincided with mounting pressure on the Obama administration to formulate a response to the growing risk of weapons proliferation in the Syrian war, notably the possibility that chemical weapons are being used in the conflict and could fall into the hands of extremists.”
Translation: “We told you a red-line violating story and you did not believe us. Time for Plan B. We’re going in.”
The Washington Post piece also confirms that the Israeli military clearly backs up the Islamist insurgency fighting the Syrian government, made up primarily of al-Qaeda in Syria (AIS):
“There were reports Friday that an overnight rebel mortar attack had caused a huge blaze at the Damascus airport, with a video posted online showing at least two locations on fire. But the Lebanese security official said the blasts, which woke him up, were bigger than those caused by mortar shells and that his Syrian counterparts had confirmed to him that the source was an Israeli strike.”
It’s not rocket science — the Israeli military and the insurgents share the same targets. Does the Washington Post realize the implications of its reporting?
The passive-aggressive US State Department, which is curiously — or not — silent every time its beloved insurgents commit an atrocity of a Boston-on-steroids scale against Christians and others who do not support al-Qaeda in Syria, has nevertheless suddenly found its voice to condemn Syrian government for a “massacre” in Baida, where seven bodies have been found killed in possible retaliation for the killing of seven members of the Syrian Army.
The US is suddenly “appalled by horrific reports” with no evidence, while silent on the truly horrific atrocities committed by its allies, the insurgents — including documented evidence of their forcing children to behead enemies of the insurgency.
Here is what the corporate media will not tell you: the Syrian government has engaged in a highly successful counter-offensive over the past three weeks that has left the foreign based insurgency on the verge of total defeat. This is the impetus for the manic Israeli bombing campaigns against the Syrian government. The silly claims of the Israeli general falling flat on the still-professional US intelligence analytical community, things just became very grave for the regime-changers in the US and Tel Aviv. The only incoming Israel has received from Syria has been insurgent fire in the Golan intended to establish the illusion of an instability so grave it requires an Israeli military response. Israeli warhawks obliged.
The cost of the Bibi-ista tactical alliance with al-Qaeda will sadly likely be high for the average Israeli who wants no part of this fight. Not unlike the ultimate cost of US support for Bin Laden against the Soviets which culminated in 9/11. The Israeli peace movement is a final hope…we are with you!
UPDATE: Did Israel nuke Syria?
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Israeli forces on high alert in Golan Heights
Fighting between rebel forces and Assad troops reach area near Majdal Shams; sirens sound in region as clashes get too close
An Israeli soldier looks through binoculars at a Syrian village from an army post on the border between Israel and Syrian on the Golan Heights (photo credit: AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
Israeli forces were on high alert in the Golan Heights Saturday, as clashes between Assad forces and rebel fighters reached areas near the Golan village of Majdal Shams, according to a report in Walla News.
The IDF is concerned about mortar shells landing in Israeli territory and cross-border shooting incidents which have increased in the past few months. Israel routinely responds to such incidents, most commonly with tank fire meant to deter further firing into its territory, even if accidental.
Israel assesses that the sirens that have sounded in the Golan Heights over the past few days were false alarms, triggered by fighting that is very close to the border.
This development comes on the heels of reports over the weekend that Israel struck a weapons shipment of advanced missiles in Syria overnight Thursday-Friday, weapons that were reportedly bound for Hezbollah. These reports were allegedly confirmed by unnamed Israeli officials to AP and Reuters, but denied by senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad on Saturday.
Earlier this week, the IDF launched a surprise military drill in the north, with a full division and over 2,000 reserve soldiers called up to prepare for potential threats from Syria and Lebanon.
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Israel hits Syrian outpost in response to cross-border fire
Army post at Tel Hazeka targeted by IDF tanks after patrol comes under attack by light arms and mortar lands in Golan; no injuries or damage on Israeli side
An IDF tank in a firing position on the Golan Heights last year (AP/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli troops fired tank shells at a Syrian army post Tuesday night after Syrian fighting spilled over into Israel in two separate incidents.
The response came a few hours after an IDF patrol on the border came under light fire from across the border and a Syrian mortar landed in the southern Golan Heights. There were no reports of injuries or damage in either incident.
The attacks came shortly after Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, during a tour of the border area, vowed to continue responding to cross-border Syrian fire.
The Israeli tanks hit an outpost at Tel Hazeka, close to where the patrol came under fire. It is not known if there were casualties on the Syrian side. The IDF said it “accurately targeted the source,” of the fire.
In the late afternoon, a shell fired from Syria slammed into Israel near Tel Fares.
Israel has come under spillover fire from Syria’s civil war from time to time, responding on occasions by shooting missiles back into the Syrian Golan Heights, where anti-Bashar Assad rebels are waging a bloody battle for control of the country.
IDF officials estimate that the cross-border fire is likely accidental, but fears of spillover violence have shaken nearly four decades of calm along Israel’s armistice line with Syria, with the UN peacekeepers in place since 1974 scaling back activities.
Earlier in the day, Ya’alon said that Jerusalem would continue to respond to fire from Syria, which he said may or may not be intentional.
“I visited the Northern Command to closely monitor the developments. Across the border there’s been a bloody civil war going on for two years, but we do not interfere as long as it does no damage to our interests,” Ya’alon said. ”When it does, by sporadic shooting that may or may not be deliberate, we respond by paralyzing the sources of fire, as has been the case already.”
Late last month, IDF soldiers fired a Tammuz missile at a Syrian army position in Tel Fares, from which shots were fired both that day and the previous day across the border into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. The missile destroyed the Syrian post and reportedly wounded two gunmen there.
A military spokesman said the soldiers responded with “accurate fire toward the Syrian post from which they were fired upon.” He could not say whether it was regular Syrian forces or rebels who fired. He spoke on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Speaking Tuesday, Ya’alon, on his first visit to the IDF Northern Command since taking office, reiterated that Israel would act to keep Syria’s vast cache of chemical weapons from falling into the hands of jihadi fighters among the rebels or the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is allied with the regime.
“We have acted to stymie this in the past and will continue to do so,” Ya’alon claimed, possibly alluding to a reported Israeli strike on what Syria called a research facility late last year. Media reports have surmised that a weapons convoy to Hezbollah was actually targeted.
However, added Ya’alon, “All in all, the Golan Heights is quiet.”
Syrian opposition forces on Monday night reportedly captured the northern city of Al-Safira, which is close to many ammunition factories and what is believed to be the regime’s largest cache of chemical weapons.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Israel fires into Syria after Golan attack on troops
JERUSALEM | Sun Mar 24, 2013 3:45pm EDT
(Reuters) – Israel said it fired into Syria on Sunday and destroyed a machinegun position in the Golan Heights from where shots had been fired at Israeli soldiers in a further spillover of the Syrian civil war along a tense front.
It was not immediately clear whether Israel held Syrian troops or rebels responsible for what a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said had been a deliberate attack on Israeli patrols in the occupied territory.
Israeli forces “destroyed a Syrian machine gun nest that fired twice in the last 24 hours on Israeli patrols operating to safeguard the border,” the spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, said on his Twitter page.
Shells have fallen several times inside Israeli-controlled territory during Syria’s civil war. Some of the incidents have drawn Israeli return fire.
Syria’s southern provinces bordering Jordan and Israel have become an increasingly significant battleground as the capital Damascus – in Syria’s south – comes into play and President Bashar al-Assad’s forces fight hard to prevent rebel advances.
The Israeli military said one of its vehicles was hit late on Saturday by shooting from across the Israeli-Syrian ceasefire line on the Golan Heights, but no one was hurt.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, said, “Our understanding is that it wasn’t stray fire.”
After a second incident on Sunday, Israeli soldiers “responded with accurate fire toward the Syrian post from which they were fired on”, the military said.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement that Israel viewed shooting from Syria “with severity” and would not allow “the Syrian army or any other element to violate Israeli sovereignty by firing at our territory”.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed the strategic plateau in 1981 in a move that has not won international recognition.
“Any … fire from the Syrian side will be answered immediately by silencing the sources of fire when we identify them,” Yaalon said.
Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defence Ministry official, said battles between Syrian government forces and Syrian rebels sometimes take place just a short distance from Israeli lines.
“At times, shells or bullets are fired at Israel. Usually the shooting (from Syria) is not deliberate, but it doesn’t matter,” he told Army Radio.
“Israel should not be the target of any attack, whether intentional or unintentional – because after all, if you accept something that was unintentional, that could lead to something intentional in the end,” Gilad said.
Israel has said for months that it expects Assad’s government to fall and has voiced concern that its chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas and al Qaeda.
Israeli President Shimon Peres has called for Assad to step down.
(Reporting by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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IDF fires missile into Syria after more cross-border shooting
Syrian outpost completely destroyed, leaving two wounded; defense minister warns of no-tolerance approach to attacks
View of the Golan Heights from Kuneitra (photo credit: Yossi Zamir/Flash90)
By Times of Israel staff and AP March 24, 2013
IDF soldiers on Sunday morning fired a Tammuz missile at a Syrian army position in Tel Fares, from which shots were fired both that day and the previous day across the border into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. The missile destroyed the Syrian post and reportedly wounded two gunmen there.
A military spokesman said the soldiers responded with “accurate fire toward the Syrian post from which they were fired upon.” He could not say whether regular Syrian forces or rebels fired. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Later reports suggested the gunfire at Israel had come from Syrian army forces, but that it was not clear whether it had been deliberately aimed at Israel.
On Saturday, an IDF patrol convoy in the Golan Heights came under rifle fire from the same Syrian army post as fighting continued along Israel’s borders with Israel and Jordan. No one was hurt, but the rounds caused damage to several IDF patrol vehicles.
It was unclear, in that incident too, whether the rifle fire was deliberately aimed at the IDF vehicles.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Israeli was implementing a no-tolerance policy in response to any Syrian fire.
“We deplore the shooting attack on IDF forces inside Israeli territory,” Ya’alon said in a statement. “In response, the IDF retaliated according to the policy instated by the government: Any breach of Israeli sovereignty from the Syrian side will immediately precipitate the suppression of the sources of fire.”
The defense minister added that Israel held the Syrian government responsible.
“We were forced to act in a targeted way and to attack and destroy the post from which this (gunfire) took place,” IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said Sunday. “We will continue to operate in the Golan Heights with reason and caution, but where determination and assertive and offensive action is needed, that will also take place.”
The rebel effort to overrun the Quneitra region along the ceasefire line separating Syria and Israel has heightened worries that Islamic extremists among those fighting Assad could take over the frontline with Israeli troops and gain a potential staging ground for attacks on the Jewish state.
The frontier has largely been calm in the nearly four decades since the two countries fought a war over the Golan Heights that ended with a UN-monitored ceasefire. But Israeli military officials have expressed concern that a rebel takeover could upset the calm maintained by Assad and his predecessor and father, the late Hafez Assad.
Those fears have been compounded by increasing influence wielded by extremist groups over the divided rebels and the increasing international isolation of the regime.
“We are seeing terror organizations gaining footholds increasingly in the territory,” said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel’s military chief at a conference in Israel last week. “For now, they are fighting Assad. Guess what? We’re next in line.”
Israel says it is trying to stay out of Syria’s civil war, but it retaliated for sporadic Syrian fire that spilled into Israeli communities on the Golan Heights on several occasions over the past few months.
An Israeli military official this week said the entire border area has become a “playground” for skirmishes between rebels and the Syrian army.
The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, known as UNDOF, was established to monitor the ceasefire in May 1974 by a UN Security Council resolution.
Last month, members of the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade held 21 Filipino UNDOF peacekeepers hostage for four days, raising concerns about the future of UN operations in the area.
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4 Syrians Treated, 2 Taken to Israeli Hospital by IDF
Four hurt Syrians were treated at the northern border Wednesday and two later hospitalized in Israel. It’s not the first time.
IDF patrol in Golan Heights Reuters
Four wounded Syrians received emergency medical care from IDF medics at Israel’s northern border on Wednesday, with two subsequently hospitalized in the Jewish State.
The four had approached the border fence on their own volition, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said.
Medical intervention was provided for humanitarian reasons and with the approval of IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, the spokesperson said.
Nevertheless, the incident does not constitute a change in Israel’s policy to avoid intervening in Syrian affairs, and Israel as a policy does not accept refugees from Syria, the spokesperson added.
The IDF said the two casualties are to be returned to Syria once medical treatment is completed.
This is not the first time such an incident has occurred.
Seven Syrian refugees were rushed to Ziv Medical Center in Tzfat last month, all wounded in clashes on the Golan Heights between opposition forces and troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. One was in critical condition.
Syrian rebels seized a military police installation at Han Arnabeh, northeast of Quneitra, not far from the Israeli-Syrian border, and more recently took control of a Syrian army intelligence base eight kilometers (five miles) from the Golan Heights border.
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Video: IDF Arrests Suspects in Rock Attack
The IDF arrested 10 suspects, all PA Arabs, in the rock attack near Ariel which left a two-year-old girl in critical condition.
The following video documents the arrest of Palestinian Authority Arabs who are suspected of being involved in Thursday night’s rock attack near Ariel, which caused a car to crash into a truck.
The attack left a two-year-old girl in critical condition. The girl’s mother and two of her sisters suffered moderate to serious injuries.
By Friday morning soldiers had arrested 10 suspects, all of whom live in the area in which the attack was committed. Eight were picked up in the town of Heres, and two in Kifl Harath.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered security forces to crack down on attacks by PA residents against Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
Thursday night’s attack led to calls for a harsher approach to rock attacks among top government officials. Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman said the IDF should change its rules of engagement and instruct soldiers to open fire at rock-throwing terrorists.
Rock attacks have caused deaths and serious injuries on Israel’s roads for decades, he said.
Bayit Yehudi chairman MK Naftali Bennett said, “Rocks kill… Some people take rock throwing lightly, and prevent action against them. Rock throwers are trying to murder and they need to be treated accordingly.”
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IDF Arrests Suspects in Near-Fatal Rock Attack
The IDF arrests 10 PA men suspected of rock attack that badly wounded a mother and three young girls.
Arrest by special forces (file)
Nati Shochat, Flash 90
The IDF worked quickly in the wake of Thursday night’s rock attack near Ariel. By Friday morning soldiers had arrested 10 suspects, all Palestinian Authority resident Arab men.
The attack left a two-year-old girl in critical condition. The girl’s mother and two of her sisters suffered moderate to serious injuries.
The suspects all live in the area in which the attack was committed. Eight were picked up in the town of Heres, and two in Kifl Harath.
A statement from the IDF Friday morning read, “The IDF takes very seriously the unacceptable phenomenon of ‘popular terrorism’ which includes, among other things, throwing rocks. The IDF will continue to take determined action, both overt and covert, to guarantee the safety of residents of the area.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered security forces to crack down on attacks by PA residents against Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
Thursday night’s attack led to calls for a harsher approach to rock attacks among top government officials. Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman said the IDF should change its rules of engagement and instruct soldiers to open fire at rock-throwing terrorists.
Rock attacks have caused deaths and serious injuries on Israel’s roads for decades, he said.
Bayit Yehudi chairman MK Naftali Bennett said, “Rocks kill… Some people take rock throwing lightly, and prevent action against them. Rock throwers are trying to murder and they need to be treated accordingly.”
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End Time Bible Prophecy 
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