Syria Supplying Missiles To Hezbollah

The IDF have identified and destroyed a number of trucks coming from Syria into Lebanon carrying additional rockets. Some of these are the large 220mm rockets like the one that hit a train station in Haifa Killing eight civilians.

Although Hizbullah has suffered a harsh blow from Israeli air force strikes which took out a good percentage of their available weapons, Syria was continuing to smuggle arms into Lebanon to rearm the group, IDF Operations Branch Head Major General Gadi Eisenkot said during a press briefing Tuesday.

Thus far, the IAF managed to intercept a number of trucks transporting rockets from Syria to Hizbullah, including trucks laden with the 220mm-diameter rockets with warheads like the one that hit the Haifa train depot  Monday, claiming eight lives. Maj.-Gen. Eisenkot said he would be very surprised if official elements in Syria were unaware of these transports.

“These are rockets that belong to the Syrian army. You can’t find them in the Damascus market, and the Syrian government is responsible for this smuggling,” Eisenkot said, but stressed, “We are not operating against Syria or the Lebanese army.”

During the briefing, Maj.-Gen. Eisenkot said the IDF has hit over 1,000 targets, 180 of them Katyusha and rocket storage sites and 350 launch sites. Over 250 missile strikes were carried out with the aim of blocking traffic arteries, and 200 buildings used by Hizbullah were hit. According to Eisenkot, Israel’s offensive would continue without time limitations.

“With that, we always operate under the principle of a short fighting period. In the short term, this is a complicated reality for civilians too, but in the long term this operation holds great importance for all of us,” he noted. He added that senior Hizbullah leaders were hiding out in underground bunkers. “We struck a number of mid-level operatives in the organization, and not in the numbers we wished, but our energies have been aimed at taking out weapons stores and rocket launchers,” he said.

Unlike Hezbollah, Israel is not intentionally aiming at civilians, of course. The attempt by Syria to ship in missiles could be interpreted as a provocation worthy of going to war over, if Israel so chose. Assad is playing a dangerous game at his Iranian master's bidding.