The Israeli military said it intercepted two drones approaching from Syria on Monday, a day after a drone attack by Lebanon’s Hezbollah on a base killed four soldiers.
“A short while ago, two UAVs that approached Israeli territory from Syria were successfully intercepted by the IAF (air force). The UAVs were intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement.
Israel is fighting a war on two fronts, one on its northern border with Lebanon, the other with Hamas in Gaza, while it also faces attacks from Iran-backed militants in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Earlier on Monday, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — a loose alliance of armed groups backed by Iran — said it had fired drones at Israel in two separate attacks.
“The Islamic Resistance in Iraq attacked at dawn… a vital target in the Jordan Valley in our occupied lands, using drones,” the group said in a statement before later announcing a second salvo.
The Jordan Valley is split between Israel, Jordan, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli authorities rarely comment publicly about individual strikes or operations involving Syria but have repeatedly said they will not allow Iran to expand its sway over the region.
Hezbollah has historically relied on its ally Syria to transport arms and other equipment from its main backer, Iran.
Last week, the Israeli army said its forces killed a Hezbollah figure inside Syria, Adham Jahout, who was described as an intermediary who “relayed information from Syrian regime sources to the Hezbollah.”
Iran and Hezbollah have been among the Syrian government’s most important allies in the country’s more than a decade-old civil war.
On October 30, an Israeli air strike hit a road linking Syria and Lebanon as Israel tried to cut off supply routes of Hezbollah, according to a Syrian war monitor.
That strike came less than a week after Israeli jets struck the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing of Masnaa in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, cutting off the road to traffic.
A deadly strike blamed on Israel on April 1 against Iran’s diplomatic mission in Damascus leveled the embassy’s consular annex, killing seven Revolutionary Guard members, including two generals.
Nearly two weeks later, Iran launched a wave of missiles and drones at Israel, Tehran’s first-ever direct assault on Israeli territory since the establishment of its Islamic republic in 1979.