In the seventh attack carried out by Israel inside Syrian territory since the beginning of the year, the official Syrian news agency (SANA) quoted a military source as saying that 5 soldiers were wounded, and that material losses occurred, so what is the secret of this escalation?
On the background of this escalation, Dr. Fatima Al-Smadi – in her interview with the program "Beyond the News" (2023/4/2) – considered that the intensification of strikes is nothing but a continuation of the ongoing war between Iran and Israel, as the latter seeks to remove the former from Syria and eliminate the cards of Iranian power, including its regional influence in the region.
Dr. Al-Smadi explained that Iran has begun to reduce its forces in Syria because it believes that the political settlement is on the right path and that its influence no longer needs those forces in Syria, adding that Tel Aviv is trying to prove its influence in the region in order to attract the US decision in order to pressure and escalate against Tehran.
These strikes have an impact on the confrontation in Israel, as officials in Tehran state that the absence of a response does not mean that it does not exist. But she predicted that statements in Tehran suggested that escalation with Israel would take on a more public dimension in the future.
Difference and anxiety
At the American level, Salim Brik, a professor of political science at the Open University and an expert on Israeli affairs, pointed out that there is American concern about everything related to the internal situation in Israel as well as unbridled anger against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, but there is a difference between them regarding the Iranian issue, as America is focused on the nuclear file in Iran, while Israel is more interested in Tehran's penetration into Middle East affairs in Syria and Lebanon, and its regional influence.
In connection with the results of a previous Israeli raid that hit the Damascus countryside at dawn on Friday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced the death of one of its military advisers, Captain Mekdad Mahqani, according to the guards, after he was wounded in that raid, which also killed another Iranian adviser. The IRGC stressed that what it called "the crime of the criminal Zionist entity" will not go unanswered.
In Israel, which usually remains silent in such situations, the prime minister, who faces deep internal troubles and complications in his relationship with ally Washington, said that Israel is paying a heavy price to regimes that support terrorism outside its borders.
The reaction to the killing of the advisers, in the Israeli raid near Damascus at dawn on Friday, came from the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, who said that their blood will not be wasted and that his country reserves the right to respond at the appropriate time and place.