Israel launches strike against Iranian drones in Syria

JERUSALEM — Israeli warplanes struck targets in southern Syria where Iran was preparing to attack Israel using explosive-laden “killer drones,” Israel’s military said, and top commanders were on alert early Sunday to see how Iran might respond.

In what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “major operational effort,” Israeli fighters hit the Syrian town of Aqraba, about 10 miles from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, before midnight Saturday.

“If someone rises up to kill you, kill him first,” Netanyahu said on Twitter, alluding to a Talmud passage justifying self-defense.

The unusual announcement of an Israeli strike inside Syria included word of what the Israeli military described as a new Iranian tactic: kamikaze-style unmanned vehicles designed to hit a target and explode upon impact.

Israel has been battling for several years to prevent Iran from establishing bases for weapons and forces that can strike Israel from Syria. It has acknowledged making hundreds of air strikes in Syria, though until fairly recently it usually refrained from openly taking responsibility for them.

Last month, Israel attacked what it said was an Iranian weapons depot in Iraq, representing an expansion of its military campaign against Iranian targets in Syria.

In February 2018, Israel said it intercepted and destroyed an Iranian drone that penetrated its airspace from Syria, then attacked the base it had been launched from, losing an F-16 fighter in the process.

But while the earlier sort of drone carried munitions it could fire on a target, Israel said, the new type is meant to strike the target itself.

“The drone itself is like a missile,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman.

Israel aimed only to destroy offensive infrastructure,...