Israel launched on Saturday large-scale strikes targeting Iranian and Syrian sites in Syria, shortly after one of its F-16 fighter jets was downed and after intercepting an Iranian drone that was dispatched from Syria into its airspace. “The F-16, which was downed in northern Israel, was hit by an anti-aircraft missile,” an Israeli official said. The Israeli army announced that the fighter jet crashed in Jezreel Valley east of Haifa, and one of its two pilots was seriously injured. This is the first time the Israeli army clearly declares bombing Iranian targets in Syria. It is also the first in a long period of time, 30 years according to Haaretz newspaper, that Israel loses a fighter jet during its raids in Syria. Israeli Military Spokesman Jonathan Conricus warned that Syria and Iran were "playing with fire", but he stressed that his country was not seeking an escalation. However, he said Israel is ready for various scenarios and will let perpetrators pay heavy prices for such acts. "This is the most blatant and severe Iranian violation of Israeli sovereignty in the past years," he told journalists, referring to the Iranian drone that entered Israeli airspace. "So, our response came with such severity." The Israeli army announced that the latest escalation began on Friday night when an Iranian drone entered the Israeli airspace after being launched from Syria. The army confirmed that an Apache helicopter intercepted the drone and downed it. It added that Israeli fighter jet responded by raiding the sites from which the aircraft was launched, but it was hit by "anti-aircraft missiles." For its part, the official Syrian news agency, SANA, announced that the Israeli raids targeted a military base in central Syria east of Homs, and that several Israeli aircrafts were hit. "The Israeli enemy started a new aggression at Friday night against one of the military bases in the central region, and our air defenses intercepted this aggression and hit more than one aircraft,” SANA quoted a military source as saying. Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdulrahman, for his part, announced that the Israeli raids targeted sites east of Homs in central Syria in an area where there are Iranian forces and elements of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah. The Israeli warplanes launched a second wave of "large-scale" raids targeting 12 Iranian and Syrian targets, including three anti-aircraft missile batteries and four unspecified Iranian targets owned by the Iranian military in Syria, according to a statement issued by the Israeli army. Russia hastened to call on all sides to avoid escalation. "We urge all sides to exercise restraint and to avoid any actions that could lead to an even greater complication of the situation," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It is absolutely unacceptable to pose threats to the lives and security of Russian servicemen who are in Syria,” it added.
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