Tensions Flare as Israel Bombs Syrian Targets and Damascus Retaliates

Israeli warplanes struck several targets in Syria early Friday, prompting retaliatory missile launches, in the most serious incident between the two countries since the Syrian civil war began six years ago.

Syria's military said it had downed an Israeli plane and hit another as they were carrying out pre-dawn strikes near the famed desert city of Palmyra that it recaptured from jihadists this month.

"Our air defense engaged them and shot down one warplane over occupied territory, hit another one, and forced the rest to flee," the army said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.

The Israeli military denied that any planes had been struck. The Syrian government has made similar unfounded claims in the past.

"The safety of Israeli civilians or the Israeli air force aircraft was at no point compromised," Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner told AFP.

Nevertheless, analysts said the incident represented a significant shift in Syria's response to Israeli airstrikes inside its territory.

The Israeli air force said earlier that it had carried out several strikes on Syria overnight, but that none of the ground-to-air missiles fired by Syrian forces in response had hit Israeli aircraft. 

It was an unusual confirmation by Israel of air raids inside Syria.

"Overnight... aircraft targeted several targets in Syria," an Israeli army statement said.

"Several anti-aircraft missiles were launched from Syria following the mission and (Israeli) aerial defense systems intercepted one of the missiles," it said.

None of the missiles fired from Syria hit their targets, the army added.

One missile was intercepted by Israel's Arrow air defense system, Israeli media reported.

It would be one of the first times the system has been used.

The firing of missiles from Syria toward Israeli aircraft is extremely rare, though Israeli military officials reported a shoulder-fired missile a few months ago.

A Syrian military statement said four Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace -- flying into Syria through Lebanese territory -- and targeted a military position in central Syria.

Syria's Foreign Ministry sent letters to the U.N. chief and the president of the Security Council calling on them to "condemn the blatant Israeli aggression that is considered a violation of international law."

Israeli Channel 10 TV reported that Israel deployed its Arrow defense system for the first time against a real threat and hit an incoming missile, intercepting it before it exploded in Israel.

The station said the Israeli military had been on a mission to destroy a weapons convoy destined for Hizbullah.

There was no immediate comment from Hizbullah.

The pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV, which has good sources within the militant Lebanese group, dismissed reports by other Arab media outlets that a Hizbullah commander, Badee Hamiyeh, was killed in one of the airstrikes. It said Hamiyeh was killed Thursday in the southern Syrian region of Quneitra, near the Israeli-held Golan Heights.

Jordan, which borders both Israel and Syria, said parts of the missiles fell in its rural northern areas, including the Irbid district. The Jordanian military said the debris came from the Israeli interception of missiles fired from Syria.

Radwan Otoum, the Irbid governor, told the state news agency Petra that the missile parts caused only minor damage.

A chunk of missile crashed into the courtyard of a home in the community of Inbeh in northern Jordan, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Syrian border.

Umm Bilal al-Khatib, a local resident, said she heard a blast and initially thought a gas cylinder had exploded. When she went outside she found a small crater and a 3-meter-long (10-foot) cylinder. She said her husband contacted Jordanian authorities, who removed the debris.

The Haaretz daily said the interception took place north of Jerusalem. However, the Arrow is designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles high in the stratosphere, so it remained unclear why the system would have been used in this particular incident.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the reports.

The Arrow is part of what Israel calls its "multilayer missile defense," comprised of different systems meant to protect against short and long range threats, including the thousands of missiles possessed by Hizbullah in Lebanon and rockets used by Hamas and other Islamic militant groups in Gaza.

- 'Significant shift' -

In April 2016, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted for the first time that Israel had attacked “dozens” of convoys transporting weapons in Syria destined for Lebanon's Hizbullah, which fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel and is now fighting alongside the Damascus regime.

The Jewish state does not usually confirm or deny each individual raid but may have been led to do so this time by the circumstances of the incident.

The missile fire from Syria prompted air raid sirens to go off in the Jordan Valley during the night, the Israeli army said.

Israel and Syria are still technically at war, though the border had remained largely quiet for decades until 2011 when the Syrian conflict broke out.

Assaf Orion, senior research fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, said Syria's response was a "significant" shift.

Until now, he said, when Israel attacked Hizbullah convoys in the country, it "usually went without a response or with an insignificant response from the Syrian side."

"(With this attack) the Syrian regime is trying to tell Israel it can't stand it anymore and those actions will not be free of charge."

President Bashar Assad's position has been strengthened in recent months with his forces reclaiming the whole of Syria's second city Aleppo, as well as enjoying continuing Russian support.

Orion said the Syrian leader was feeling emboldened.

"Assad is not feeling he is looking down a gun barrel so his future is now more guaranteed than it was in the past."

"He is saying: 'Don’t push me. I am not as weak as I used to be.'"

Yaakov Amidror, a former head of Israel’s National Security Council, said weapons convoys of the Iran-backed Hizbullah remained a "red line" for Israel and that it would continue to attack them when deemed necessary.

Witnesses cited by the Israeli press reported two explosions that could have been caused by the launch of the anti-missile system.

The Arrow 3 interceptor, designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, was handed to Israeli air force ground crews in January after successful testing by Israel and the United States.

Israel seized most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981, in a move never recognized by the international community.

Israel pays close attention to developments in the Syrian conflict for fear that it could be exploited by its arch-rival Iran to install allies close to the armistice line on the Golan and Israel's borders.