Israel says rockets fired from Syria for the first time since Bashar Assad’s fall

This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)

DAMASCUS, Syria — The Israeli army said two rockets were fired from Syria into open areas in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights on Tuesday, marking the first time a strike has been launched toward Israel from Syrian territory since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December.

Syrian state media reported that Israel shelled the western countryside of Syria’s Daraa province after the rocket launch. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, also reported Israeli airstrikes that caused “violent explosions” around the city of Quneitra and in the Daraa countryside.

A group calling itself the Mohammed Deif Brigades — named after a Hamas military leader killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza last year — claimed the attack in a post on Telegram. The group first surfaced on social media a few days before.

“Until now, it’s just a Telegram channel. It’s not known if it is a real group,” said Ahmed Aba Zeid, a Syrian researcher who has studied armed factions in southern Syria.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Israel considers “the Syrian president directly responsible for every threat and firing toward the State of Israel” and warned of a “full response” to come “as soon as possible.”

Israel has been suspicious of the Islamist former insurgents who formed the new Syrian government, led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, and has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syria and seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory since Assad’s fall.

Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run TV channel that it has “not yet verified the accuracy” of the reports of strikes launched from Syria toward Israel.

“We affirm that Syria has not and will not pose a threat to any party in the region,” the statement said. It condemned the Israeli shelling, which it said had resulted in “significant human and material losses.”

The U.S., which has warmed to al-Sharaa’s government and recently moved to lift some sanctions previously imposed on Syria, has pushed for Syria to normalize relations with Israel.

In a recent interview with the Jewish Journal, al-Sharaa said he wants to see a return to a 1974 ceasefire agreement between the two countries but stopped short of proposing immediate normalization, saying that “peace must be earned through mutual respect, not fear.”

Abby Sewell, The Associated Press