TEL AVIV (Dispatches) --
Russian forces opened fire on Israeli jets with advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles at the end of an attack by the Zionist regime on targets in northwestern Syria last week, Channel 13 news reported, in what could signal a significant shift in Moscow’s attitude to the occupying regime of Israel.
According to the Times of Israel, the unprecedented incident occurred on Friday night, when the Israeli air force bombed several targets near the city of Masyaf in northwestern Syria.
At least five people were killed and seven were hurt in the airstrike, Syria’s state news agency said. Other media in the country said six were killed, all crew members of a Pantsir air defense system who attempted to take down the Israeli missiles.
The report said the Syrian military fired off dozens of anti-aircraft missiles.
However, this time the S-300 batteries also opened fire as the jets were departing the area, Channel 12 said. The report noted that Syria’s S-300 batteries are operated by the Russian military and cannot be fired without their approval.
If confirmed, this would mark the first use of the S-300s against Israelis air force warplanes over Syria and would be a worrying development for Israel, which has carried out hundreds of airstrikes inside Syria in the course of the war and since, the occupying regime’s newspaper said.
The Zionist regime rarely acknowledges or discusses such incursions and there was no confirmation of the raid or the S-300 launch from the occupying regime’s air force.
The Channel 13 report said it was not immediately clear if the S-300 missile fire was a one-time event or if it was a Russian signal to Israel that it was changing its policy.
The Masyaf area has been repeatedly targeted in recent years in attacks attributed to the occupying regime.
The report comes amid deterioration in ties between the Zionist regime and Russia over the war in