Following a suspected Israeli airstrike, a massive explosion shook the Syrian port city of Tartus overnight, igniting new criticism of Israel’s operations in Syria after the overthrow of the Assad administration.
As Israel announced intentions to increase its population in the occupied Golan Heights, citing threats from Syria, footage of the explosion surfaced. Following Syrian opposition leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s declaration that he had no interest in getting involved in new conflicts, the action drew worldwide censure.
The images coming out of Tartus were described by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring organization based in London, as depicting the bloodiest Israeli attacks on military installations in the eastern Tartus region.
The enormous explosion can be seen blasting across the Syrian skyline in the video that went viral on social media on Monday.
NASA satellites detected aftermath fires in an area just over 9 miles from the harbor, allowing NBC News to geolocate the footage as having been shot from the Tartus port area, pointing at the mountains northeast of the city.
A request for comment on the video was not immediately answered by the Israel Defense Forces. According to an Israeli official who watched the footage, however, the blaze was probably caused by a secondary explosion because of the potential for munitions to ignite after an Israeli hit. Since the official was not allowed to discuss Israel’s aircraft campaign in Syria, they talked on condition of anonymity.
It comes days after satellite footage seemed to show Russian troops dismantling and loading up military hardware at Russia’s Tartus naval facility and Hmeimim air base, which are both situated on Syria’s Mediterranean coast south of Latakia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel’s activities in Syria, which coincided with its ongoing heavy bombing of the Gaza Strip’s Palestinian enclave, were intended to protect the nation.
After his government overwhelmingly approved his plan to increase the number of Israelis in the region, he stated in a statement on Sunday that “strengthening the Golan means strengthening the State of Israel, and this is especially important at this time.”
Israel unilaterally annexed the approximately 460-square-mile region in 1981 after occupying the Golan Heights during the 1967 Mideast War; the international community did not acknowledge this move.
When then-President Donald Trump moved to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the region in 2019, he broke with both the international community and years of U.S. history. The Biden administration did not undo this policy change.
Netanyahu’s office said Thursday that the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria had left a void along Israel’s border and in the buffer zone created by the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement, which called for Israel to leave the parts of Mount Hermon it had occupied during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. This decision to increase the Israeli population in the Golan Heights follows this announcement.
Israel declared that it will not allow Islamist organizations to take over and endanger Israeli settlements on the Golan Heights with attacks similar to those of October 7.
Following the warning, it was announced that Israeli military would spend the winter on Mount Hermon, a strategic mountain inside a buffer zone that has been shared with Syria for decades.
According to the Reuters news agency, Jolani claimed on Saturday that Israel was utilizing fictitious excuses to support its attacks on the nation. However, as the country attempts to rebuild after the fall of the Assad regime, he stated that his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group had no interest in getting involved in any new wars.
HTS, which has its origins in radical Islamist groups, is still classified as a terrorist organization worldwide. In 2018, the US put a $10 million reward on Jolani’s head.
The former Al Qaeda combatant has promised a Syria that is inclusive of all the religions and ethnic groups that are represented in the nation and has portrayed a more moderate image. According to the Biden administration, HTS may be taken off of the list of terrorist groups.
Israel’s airstrikes on Syria over the weekend and the plan to increase the Israeli population in the Golan Heights sparked international outrage by Monday. The Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry denounced what it called “a new stage in Israel’s goal of expanding its borders through occupation.”
“Israel s ongoing actions seriously undermine the efforts to bring peace and stability to Syria and further increase tensions in the region,” it stated on Monday.
It comes after United Nations chief Ant nio Guterres last week called on Israel to halt its aerial attacks and advance into Syrian territory following Assad’s ouster, as he branded “recent and extensive violations” of Syria’s sovereignty “deeply concerning.”
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