Judicial Reform Crisis: Netanyahu Attempts to Flee through a Syrian Window
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confronts internal crises that threaten his political future, he continues to bomb Syria repeatedly in what appears to be a way to escape them.
On Thursday night, Syria announced that it had been subjected to Israeli missile strikes that caused “material losses” for the second consecutive day.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency said: “Our air defenses confronted an Israeli aggression that targeted with rockets points in the Damascus countryside.”
“At 12:17 a.m. today, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack using rockets from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a site in the Damascus suburbs,” the agency quoted a military source as saying.
The source added that “our air defense media confronted the aggression’s missiles and shot down a number of them, and the aggression led to some material losses.” The source did not clarify the aim of the Israeli bombardment or the nature of the material losses.
“As usual, Tel Aviv has made no comment, but it always says it will continue to push back against what it describes as Iran’s attempts to establish a military presence in Syria.”
“Israeli shelling has been more than once this March, the second of its kind in 10 days.”
On March 12, a Syrian military source confirmed Israeli rocket attacks on Tartous and Hama villages via “bursts of rockets from northern Lebanon.”
“Although the Syrian air defense reportedly repelled and shot down some of the Israeli missiles, the attacks resulted in the injury of three military personnel and some material damage.”
The strikes were the second of their kind in a week, after the Aleppo International Airport was targeted and decommissioned for several days. The airport has been a major destination for aid aircraft arriving in Syria since a devastating earthquake struck on February 6th.
“Israeli shelling of Aleppo’s international airport was repeated on 22 March, after Israeli aircraft fired a number of missiles towards eastern Aleppo from the skies of the sea area off the Syrian coast.”
According to a Syrian security source, the strikes caused extensive damage to the airport.
Netanyahu’s Crises Threaten His Political Future
These Israeli strikes on Syria have accelerated in tandem with a severe internal government crisis in Tel Aviv that threatens Netanyahu’s political future.
Since last January, thousands of Israelis have been demonstrating in the streets in rejection of Netanyahu’s plan to reform the judicial system, in an unprecedented incident in Israel’s history.
On Monday, Netanyahu announced that he was postponing his plan until next summer, after 12 weeks of anti-Israeli demonstrations, in a move that failed to calm the Israeli street.
Demonstrations took place in parallel with Netanyahu’s decision, from the right in favor of him, to express the refusal to postpone judicial reform, and to demand to ignore the demands of the opposition in this regard, in an unprecedented division in Israel.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced his call for dialog with all parties, after which the opposition ended its mass demonstrations to give dialog a chance and compromise on reforms.