Israel says it has carried out an incursion into Syria and seized Syrian ties to Iran

JERUSALEM— The Israeli military said on Sunday it carried out a ground attack on Syria, capturing a Syrian citizen involved in Iranian networks. It was the first time in the current war that Israel announced that its troops would operate on Syrian territory.

Syria did not immediately confirm the announcement.

Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syria several times over the past year, targeting members of the Lebanese Hezbollah and officials from Iran, the close ally of both Hezbollah and Syria. But it has not previously disclosed ground attacks into Syria.

The Israeli military said the seizure was part of a special operation “that took place in recent months,” although it did not say exactly when it took place.

The revelation of the raid comes as Israel has waged an escalated bombing campaign in Lebanon over the past six weeks, as well as a ground invasion along the countries’ shared border, promising to cripple Hezbollah. On Saturday, an Israeli military official said naval forces carried out a raid on a northern Lebanese town, capturing a man they called a senior Hezbollah operative.

The army did not specify in its statement on Sunday where in Syria the raid took place or when. It identified the man who seized it as Ali Soleiman al-Assi and said he lives in Syria’s southern Saida region. According to the report, the man had been under military surveillance for months and was involved in Iranian initiatives targeting areas of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria.

Body camera footage of the raid released by the military showed soldiers arresting a man in a white tank top inside a building. The man was taken to Israel for questioning, the army said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border with Lebanon on Sunday and said his focus was on stopping Hezbollah from rearming itself through the “oxygen lifeline” of Iranian weapons transferred to Lebanon through Syria. Israel says its campaign in Lebanon aims to push Hezbollah away from the border and end the group’s more than a year of shelling in northern Israel.

More than 2,500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon over the past year. 69 people have been killed by Hezbollah projectiles in Israel.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces continue their campaign in Gaza. In the southern part of the area, an Israeli attack hit a group of people gathered outside in an eastern district of Khan Yunis, killing at least eight Palestinians, including four children and a woman, health ministry officials said. Gaza. The city’s Nasser Hospital, which received the most bodies, confirmed the figures.

Palestinian officials said an Israeli drone strike on Saturday hit a clinic in northern Gaza where children were being vaccinated against polio, wounding six people, including four children. The Israeli military denied responsibility.

Dr. Munir al-Boursh, director general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told the Associated Press that a quadcopter struck the Sheikh Radwan Clinic in Gaza City early Saturday afternoon, just a few minutes after a United Nations delegation entered the facility had left.

The World Health Organization and the UN children’s agency known as UNICEF, which are jointly implementing the polio vaccination campaign, expressed concern over the reported strike.

“The reports of this attack are even more disturbing because the Sheikh Radwan Clinic is one of the health centers where parents can get their children vaccinated,” said Rosalia Bollen, spokesperson for UNICEF.

“Today’s attack took place while the humanitarian pause was still in effect, despite assurances that the pause would be respected from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.”

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said that “contrary to claims, an initial investigation showed that the (Israeli army) did not strike in the area at the stated time.”

It was not possible to resolve the conflicting accounts. Israeli forces have repeatedly raided hospitals in Gaza over the course of the war, saying Hamas uses them for militant purposes, accusations denied by Palestinian health officials. Hamas fighters also operate in the north, battling Israeli forces.

Northern Gaza has been surrounded by Israeli forces for the past year and largely isolated. Israel has carried out another offensive there in recent weeks, killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.

A scaled-down campaign to administer a second dose of the polio vaccine began in parts of northern Gaza on Saturday. It was postponed until October 23 due to lack of access, Israeli bombing and mass evacuation orders, and the lack of guarantees for humanitarian breaks, a UN statement said.

The administration of the first dose was carried out in September across the Gaza Strip, including areas in northern Gaza that are now under complete lockdown. Health officials said the first round of the campaign and the administration of the second dose in central and southern Gaza were successful.

At least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate from areas of northern Gaza to Gaza City in recent weeks, but around 15,000 children under the age of 10 remain in inaccessible northern towns, including Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun. according to the UN

The final phase of the polio vaccination campaign aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children in the north with a second dose of the oral polio vaccine, the agencies said, but “achieving this target is now unlikely due to access restrictions.”

They say 90% of children in every community need to be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease.

The campaign was launched after the first polio case in 25 years was reported in Gaza: a ten-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization said the presence of one paralysis case suggests there could be hundreds more who are infected but not showing symptoms.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping another 250. The Israeli offensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. Say how many fighters there were, but say that more than half were women and children.

Lidman and Magdy write for the Associated Press. Magdy reported from Cairo.