JERUSALEM—In a succession of swift steps after being hit by two rockets fired onto its territory from Syria Thursday, Israel has signaled to the Iranian-backed organization allegedly behind the incident that it knows who is responsible and that "we’ll get you."
The rockets caused no casualties or damage beyond brushfires but Israel’s vigorous reaction reflects its belief that the attack is part of a stepped-up Iranian campaign to attack Israel through proxies. It was the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War that shells were fired into Israel from Syrian territory.
Within hours of the rocketing, Israeli artillery and warplanes hit 14 Syrian army targets across the border. Syria was not behind the attack, Israeli officials say, but the rockets were launched from territory under the army’s control. In an unusual move immediately afterwards, a senior security official briefing reporters revealed sensitive security information by naming the person who had ordered the rocketing as an Iranian officer, Saad Ezadi. He was identified as head of the Israel desk of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Quds Force is responsible for quasi-military operations outside Iran and answers directly to the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
Israeli officials said the rocketing, which also included the firing of two rockets into the Golan Heights, had been carried out by a cell from the Palestinian branch of Islamic Jihad under Ezadi’s control.
By revealing Ezadi’s role and identifying the group that carried out the operation, Israel seemed to suggest that it had precise intelligence about what is happening in the area opposite the Golan border. The Syrian civil war has created a swirl of battling entities there—rebel groups of various ideological hues and militias supporting the regime as well as Syrian army concentrations.
On Friday morning, Israel offered an even more tangible demonstration of its ability to monitor the region when an aircraft, perhaps a drone, fired rockets that destroyed a moving car about 10 miles from the Golan border.
Israel said the occupants were the members of the team that had fired the rockets. Four of the five persons in the car were killed. The fate of the fifth is unknown. A rebel group in the area reported that one of the five was an Iranian officer.
"We followed the cell and attacked it in an area that was under the control of the Syrian army," said a senior Israeli officer. He described it as "an Islamic Jihad cell controlled by Iran."
Israeli officials have said for more than a year that Iran is seeking to open a new front against Israel by extending the reach of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, its principal proxy, from the northern Israeli border to the Golan border. This has been the quietest of Israel’s borders since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, with the regime in Damascus keeping militant groups away so as not to provoke Israeli reaction. Because of the civil war, however, the regime of Bashar al-Assad is beholden to Iran, its main support, and it no longer controls the area opposite the Golan.
The first public awareness of an Iranian presence in the area was last January when an Israeli aircraft fired rockets that destroyed two vehicles on Syrian territory that were apparently reconnoitering the border, killing the 12 occupants. It was subsequently learned that one vehicle contained six Iranian military personnel, one of them a general. The other contained six Hezbollah personnel, including two senior officers. That incident was the first public indication of the extent to which Israel was monitoring the area. It was widely assumed that Israel knew beforehand the identity and mission of the vehicles’ occupants.
In recent weeks, army officers briefing reporters have said that Israel, in its determination to prevent Iran and its proxies from building up an anti-Israel base close to the Golan, is preparing for the possibility of sending troops across the border if necessary.