[planning ahead] Israeli army confirms elite unit raided Syrian missile production facility in September

Yaniv Kubovich

Haaretz  /  January 1, 2025

Israeli commandos swarmed the facility manufacturing Hezbollah missiles before gathering intelligence and blowing the building up. Syria’s official news agency said 18 people were killed and dozens wounded.

The army confirmed on Wednesday that commandos raided a weapons factory in Syria in September.

A few days after the operation, The New York Times reported that several people had been killed in Syria. The country’s official news agency said 18 people were killed and dozens wounded.

The soldiers collected intelligence and then destroyed the facility. Details of the operation were reported by the foreign media at the time, but the Israeli army hadn’t previously claimed responsibility for it. According to the Times, Israel briefed American officials about the operation before carrying it out.

The IDF said the air force struck several targets near the facility, located in the Masyaf region of the Hama district, before the commandos went in. The soldiers, from the Air Force’s elite Shaldag unit, were flown to their target by helicopter. The building had an underground production line to produce missiles used by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

When the commandos arrived, armed men opened fire at them. They returned fire and killed the armed men, then raided the building. After gathering intelligence they found, they rigged the underground facility with explosives and blew it up, then returned to the helicopters.

Eva Koulouriotis, a researcher of the Middle East, first reported details of the operation in September and attributed it to Israel. In a post on X, she wrote that the target of the raid was a facility jointly owned by Iran and Syria that was used for research, development and production of weapons, including precision missiles and drones. She added that the facility provided logistical support to Hezbollah, and that Israel had attacked it in the past.

In December, following the collapse of the Assad regime, Israel carried out a series of strikes targeting hundreds of military installations and destroying a substantial portion of the Syrian Air Force. The strikes aimed at destroying infrastructure and military assets used by the Syrian military, including major bases, tanks, naval vessels and aircraft.

Israel’s navy attacked a large number of ships in a bid to keep Syria’s naval assets from falling into hostile hands. Missile boats destroyed vessels bearing dozens of anti-ship missiles.

Yaniv Kubovich – defense editor