The Kremlin is uncertain if Israel had warned the Russian military of its operation in Syria, because the mechanism of information exchange links the two countries’ general staffs, TASS reported on Monday.
“I cannot say for certain,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “There is a working mechanism of information exchanges between the general staffs. It is the military who should be addressed with this question and asked if there had been any prior notifications on that score.”
Hezbollah said on Sunday that Israeli warplanes carried out a raid in the Jermana suburbof Damascus, aiming to eliminate Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese terrorist renowned for his murder of a father and his little daughter on the beach of the city of Nahariya in Israel. The Hezbollah statement also accused Israel of causing “casualties among Syrian civilians” without additional details. Several western sources suggested there were other Hezbollah ranking staff with Kuntar in the building that was hit by rocket fire.
Syria’s Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi pinned the killing on Israel, telling Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television that “Israel was interested in the man’s death more than anybody else.” Al-Zoubi did not why Israel wanted Kuntar dead, but nevertheless emphasized that the Syrian government “condemned the terrorist attack against Jermana, which resulted in the death of civilians and Arab fighter Kuntar.”
Syria’s television channel Al-Ikhbariyah said the Israeli warplanes rocketed one of the buildings in Jermana, known to be Kuntar’s home. Kuntar was freed from Israeli jail in 2008 in return for the bodies of two IDF reservists held by Hezbollah.