DAMASCUS: Syria said it opened fire on Israeli warplanes which had violated Syrian airspace at dawn on Thursday, heightening tensions between the two foes.
“Enemy Israeli planes penetrated Syrian airspace from the Mediterranean Sea heading towards the northeast, breaking the sound barrier, an army spokesman told the official Sana news agency.
“Our air defenses repulsed them and forced them to leave…after the Israeli planes dropped ammunition, without causing human or material loss, he said.
“The Syrian Arab Republic warns the government of the Israeli enemy against this aggressive action and reserves the right to respond in any way it deems appropriate.
There was no immediate response from Israel.
But a Syrian government minister admitted to satellite television network Al-Jazeera that it remained unclear whether the Israeli aircraft had actually carried out an attack.
“They intervened in our airspace… which they should not do – we are a sovereign country and they should not come into airspace, Expatriate Affairs Minister Bussaina Shaaban told Al-Jazeera’s English-language channel.
“We do not know yet if the aircraft dropped anything. “The investigation is still going on the ground, she said.
In June 2006, Israeli warplanes flew over President Bashar Al-Assad’s palace in northern Syria while he was inside, an action Damascus condemned as an “act of piracy.
Over the past few months, Israeli and Syrian leaders have both said their countries do not want a war, but were preparing for any possibility while each side has accused the other of arming for a conflict.
Syria and Israel remain technically at a state of war, and peace talks broke down in 2000 over the fate of the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed in 1981.
The last overflight by Israel in 2006 came amid high tensions in the Middle East after the Jewish state launched a massive military offensive on the Gaza Strip to try to retrieve a soldier captured by Palestinian militants.
The Gaza action was followed just a few weeks later by a devastating Israeli war in Lebanon against the Shia Muslim Hezbollah group, after two soldiers were captured in a raid by the guerrillas.
Syria shelters a number of radical Palestinian groups, and is home to Khaled Meshaal, the exiled supremo of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) who tops Israel’s most wanted list.
Last month, Israel said it was reducing its military presence on the Golan Heights and lowering its level of alert following months of increased tensions with Syria.
However, it said it will continue to conduct regular training on the plateau following the Lebanon war against Hezbollah, which revealed major shortcomings in the army’s conduct.
Israel continues to carry out occasional flights over neighboring Lebanon, triggering protests from Beirut and concern from the United Nations peacekeeping force monitoring a ceasefire there.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak also said in August that “Israel does not want a war and Syria, according to our estimates, does not wish for one either.
Thursday’s action comes exactly a month to the day before the anniversary of the October 1973 war.
On Oct. 6 of that year, Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, to recover territory lost in the 1967 Middle East war, although they were again defeated.
