A Syrian missile entered Israel as far as the vicinity of the Dimona nuclear reactor, on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, April 22. This exceptionally serious shot was described by the military in the Israeli press as an unintentional strike: it did not deliberately target the core of Israel’s nuclear program, the existence of which the country does not officially recognize.
This alleged SA-5 surface-to-air missile, fired by a defense battery, may have targeted an IDF aircraft carrying out night-time strikes against targets in Syria. Missing him, he would have continued his course in the Negev desert, very far in the south of the country, up to about 300 kilometers from Damascus. A warning siren sounded in Abu Krinat, a deprived Bedouin village located a few kilometers from Dimona. The military has not confirmed whether its defense system ultimately intercepted the missile. Explosions heard as far away as Jerusalem and Modiin, in the center of the country, could be due to this attempted interception. Debris was found about forty kilometers from Dimona and remains to be identified.
In response, the Israeli army says it destroyed the Syrian battery responsible for this shooting, as well as others nearby. The Syrian state agency Sana, for its part, contented itself with indicating that four soldiers were injured in a strike near Damascus. She claimed that “Most enemy missiles” had been intercepted, specifying that they had been fired from the Syrian part of the Golan Heights, conquered by Israel in 1967, then annexed.
The aftermath of Natanz’s attack
However, this incident causes unease, since it comes two weeks after another sabotage at the Iranian nuclear site of Natanz. The attack was loudly claimed in the press by Israeli officials, on condition of anonymity, sparking fears of Iranian reprisals. Tehran, godfather of the Syrian regime, operates largely autonomously on its territory. It has worked for years to control missile batteries there aimed at Israel, in return provoking regular Israeli strikes.
Iranian ultraconservative daily on Saturday Kayhan had published a column, which suggested responding to Natanz’s attack by targeting the Dimona reactor. Its author, Sadollah Zarei, professor of political science at Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, is not a marginal voice in the power apparatus: some of his articles are published on the website of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. However, such appeals are not uncommon in the regime press. And Syrian defense missiles have wandered dangerously through the region in the past following Israeli strikes.
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