Israel May Step Up Strikes Inside Syria, Military Warns

Lebanon Infrastructure Devastated by US-Backed Israeli War, a photo by panafnewswire on Flickr.

Israel may step up strikes inside Syria, military warns

Michele Chabin , Special for USA TODAY1:08 p.m. EDT May 21, 2013

Threat follows three days of Syria attacks along the border.

Israel warns that it will not tolerate attacks
Syria vows to hit Israel to avenge strikes against Hezbollah

Analysts warn of widening conflict
JERUSALEM – Syria's stepped-up targeting of Israeli forces along the border between the two countries will force Israel to take a stronger hand in the conflict if it does not cease, Israel's military warned Tuesday.

Israeli Defense Forces Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz issued his warning to Syria after an Israeli jeep was fired at during a patrol in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, a border plateau where both countries have had permanent forces since a 1967 war.

"We will not allow the Golan Heights to become a comfortable space for Assad to operate from," Gantz said. "If he deteriorates (the situation on) the Golan Heights, he will have to bear the consequences."

The Tuesday clash is the third time this week Syrian troops fired into northern Israel. Israel on Tuesday fired Tammuz missiles at a Syrian military position following three consecutive nights of Syrian gunfire toward the same Israeli military position. The IDF denied Syrian claims that the jeep wandered into Syrian territory.

Tuesday's attack was the first time the Syrian military has acknowledged targeting Israeli forces patrolling the border, which has seen almost no fighting since the 1974 Israel-Syrian disengagement agreement.

Israeli leaders worry that Syria may try and drag Israel into its civil war, in which 80,000 Syrians have died in a two-year rebellion against the dictatorship of Bashar Assad.

"I don't expect a war with Syria in the north, but the tranquility since 1974 is over," Israeli parliamentarian Nachman Shai said Tuesday. "We should be ready for a different situation in the Golan Heights."

Israel has already taken a hand in the conflict. It has launched airstrikes against convoys and depots inside Syria that it says were shipping weaponry to the anti-Israeli terrorist group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which is on the northern border of Israel.

Syria has vowed to retaliate. Assad said Syria is "capable of facing Israel" and would not accept violations of its sovereignty, according to the Associated Press.

Many Israeli analysts have said that Assad won't attempt an all-out war with Israel unless he achieves an all-out victory over the rebels.

Mordechai Kedar, a former IDF intelligence officer who is a research associate at Bar Ilan University's BESA Center for Strategic Affairs, said that if Assad feels he is on the verge of being ousted he could do something desperate.

"If Assad feels he is losing everything and in his last days, he could behave like the biblical Samson, who said, 'Let my soul die with the Philistines. If I'm going to die, I will kill as many as I can in the process.'"

In such a situation, Assad may launch "whatever weapons, conventional and chemical," at the rebels, Israel, Turkey and even parts of Lebanon, Kedar said.

"This is a scenario every state in the region should consider," Kedar said, adding that Israel and the United States are "closely" monitoring the situation.

Meanwhile, Israel Minister of Strategic and Intelligence Affairs and International Relations, Yuval Steinitz, said Tuesday that Syria may be trying to get Israel to take its attention away from Iran, which is pursuing a nuclear program that the United States believes is headed toward an atomic weapon. Iran has vowed to destroy Israel.

"Events and the situation in Syria, Sinai and the Gaza Strip must not displace – even for a moment – the most critical issue, which is a nuclear Iran. The Iranian nuclear project changes the situation; it will change the situation for the State of Israel, the Middle East and even that of the entire world," Steinitz said.