Israeli warplanes have attacked Islamic Jihad and Hamas "training camps" inside Syrian soil early Sunday following the Haifa bombing the left 20 Israelis killed.
The Israeli Army said the attack on Ein El Saheb camp was carried out "deep inside Syrian territory."
"Following the attack (Haifa bombing), the army has started operating against those behind the attack, those who support and those who use the strategy of terror in order to harm citizens of Israel," the army said in a statement.
Syrian sources said one person was wounded in the Israeli raid. They added the attacked target was a refugee camp and not a training camp. A Syrian political analyst Imad Sheibi said from Damascus that the attack was staged at an unarmed "Palestinian refugee center" 50 kilometers west of the Syrian capital in a spot close to the Lebanese border.
Sheibi, speaking in a live interview with Al Jazeera TV, called the attack an "act of lunatic playing with fire" that could set the whole Middle East ablaze. It was the first Israeli attack in many years against a target in Syria proper.
Abu Emad El-Refaei, an Islamic Jihad spokesman in Beirut denied that there were any Islamic Jihad bases in Syria.
"We do not have any training camps or bases in Syria or any other country," he said. "All our bases are inside the Palestinian occupied territories."
A senior commander for the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command told The
Associated Press in Damascus that the camp was one of their deserted bases, not on an Islamic Jihad camp. A civilian guard was injured in the attack, the commander said. (Albawaba.com)
