How Israel’s Strikes Canceled Future Threats From Syria – Israel News

The Israeli Air Force More than 500 attacks on Syria’s military assets in a 48-hour period this week since the fall of the Assad regime have permanently and radically altered the threat any future Syrian regime may pose to the state of Israel, the IDF said Thursday.

This means that, in the worst case scenario, if Syria’s new rulers, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)decide to be hostile to Israel, they will not be able to immediately threaten the Jewish state with the kind of advanced, long-range weapons that the Assad regime wielded.

Revealing a host of mind-boggling statistics, the IDF noted that it destroyed more than 90 percent of Syria’s advanced anti-aircraft missiles, particularly the SA22 and SA17 systems, which sometimes shot down portions of Israeli attacks on Iranian arms smuggling through the area.

In total, about 85 percent of Syria’s air defenses were destroyed, including less advanced systems.

IDF Strikes on Infrastructure and Surface-to-Air Missile Launchers in Syria, December 12, 2024 (IDF CARRIER UNIT)

Squadrons of SU-22, SU-24 aircraft destroyed

The IDF then said that Syria’s squadrons of SU-22 and SU-24 aircraft were completely destroyed and, in total, about 40 percent of the Syrian air force.

IDF soldiers operate on Mount Hermon, on the border between Israel and Syria, December 12, 2024 (credit: IDF Spokesperson’s UNIT)

100% of Syrian explosive drones were destroyed and 390 significant Syrian firepower targets were destroyed by the air force.

In addition to these more active strike systems, the air force now has stunning air superiority in Syrian airspace that it could not have dreamed of while the Assad regime was intact, as it has essentially destroyed all of Syria’s radar capabilities.

IDF sources said that the Syrians still have no idea what they have lost in terms of potential threats to Israel and that it could take them a significant amount of time to figure this out, especially given that the Syrian army that was used to handling these weapons melted away. left last weekend.

More broadly, the IDF said it destroyed about 80 percent of Syria’s larger-scale firepower.

At the same time, IDF sources admitted that this number may be too optimistic, as there may be firepower items that Syria has hidden underground that the IDF has not found or been able to find hit

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That said, the IDF said it was able to identify and hit a number of underground Syrian military targets.

Moreover, the IDF said that Syria now has only one border crossing point for a potential transfer of weapons to Hezbollah, which means that the project to rearm the Lebanese terrorist groups will be much more difficult to achieve.

This is in addition to the fact that most of Iran’s presence has been removed from Syria for fear of retaliation from HTS, given that Iran has fought on the side of the Assad regime since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

IDF sources also said there were signs that HTS could completely expel Russia from Syria. Some observers said that Moscow might try to renegotiate its presence on very different terms, so that HTS would have real control over the entire territory and Russia would only really serve as guest aid if and when needed, but which would keep a part of Russia. .

In addition to Syria, the IDF said that before the Nov. 26 ceasefire, it had eliminated virtually all leadership of Hezbollah’s Drone Unit 127, meaning that unit cannot currently carry out any complex or coordinated attacks.

While the IDF has previously stated that it has destroyed approximately 70-80% of Hezbollah’s long-range and strategic weapons, in terms of its wider command structure, the percentage is said to be closer to 60-70% destroyed.