WarSclerotic

Palestinian militants in Syria: Assad grants green light to attack Israel – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Anwar Raja of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command says it received nod from regime to strike Israeli targets from the Syrian-controlled part of Golan Heights.

 

 

 

A spokesman for a Palestinian militant group in Syria says it has received a nod from President Bashar Assad‘s regime to attack Israel following the back-to-back Israeli airstrikes over the weekend.

 

Anwar Raja of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command says the regime has given “a green light” for the group “to attack Israeli targets” from the Syrian-controlled part of Golan Heights.

Raja did not elaborate on how the alleged approval was conveyed to PFLP-GC fighters but he stressed that there was no official government note. The Palestinian official spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Most Palestinians in Syria remained on the sidelines of the 2-year-old conflict, but PFLP-GC has fought alongside government troops against the rebels trying to topple Assad.

A mortar shell fired from Syria landed in the central Golan Heights on Tuesday morning, near the border fence in Tel Fares. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The IDF said it was most likely an errant shell fired by one of the sides battling in Syria. The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF ) stationed on the border has been notified.

 

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is making his case to Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia to take a tougher stance on Syria.

 

Kerry, who arrived in Moscow on Tuesday, is hoping to change Russia’s thinking on Syria with two new angles: American threats to arm the Syrian rebels and evidence of chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime.

 

Russia, alongside China, has blocked U.S.-led efforts three times at the United Nations to pressure Assad into stepping down.

 

U.S. officials are hoping Syria’s behavior could shift Russia’s stance.
“We have consistently, in our conversations with the Russians and others, pointed clearly to Assad’s behavior as proof that further support for the regime is not in the interest of the Syrian people or in the interest of the countries that have in the past supported Assad,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

On Monday evening, two mortar shells were fired from Syria to Israel, and landed in an open area near the border fence. In this case too, the IDF notified UNDOF.

The Haifa airport which was closed on Sunday due to the tensions in northern Israel was reopened on Monday, and El Al and Arkia commercial flights are set to resume.

Without confirming foreign reports saying Israel was behind both attacks last Friday and Sunday, American officials said Monday morning that the U.S. received no early warning of the strikes. The New York Times quoted a Syrian official who claimed that the strike hit an elite military unit. A Syrian doctor told the paper that at least 100 soldiers were killed in the attack.

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