Israel: Russia accepts our take on Syrian downing of plane, coordination goes on
“Improvements” may be made to the Israeli military’s coordination with Russia over its operations in Syria in light of the downing of a Russian spy plane earlier this week, a senior Israeli army official said Friday. For now, he stressed, the deconfliction mechanism used by the two countries to coordinate activities was continuing to function effectively.Syria fired missiles for 40 minutes after Israeli strike, hitting Russian plane
The official said an Israeli military delegation had answered Russia’s questions over Monday’s incident, including debunking the false notion that the Israeli jets had hidden behind the Russian plane. Israel also clarified that its attack planes had left the area before the Syrians fired the missile that downed the Russian plane.
He also said Israel notified the Russians ahead of the strike, and not a minute before as Moscow had originally claimed. And he dismissed a pro-Hezbollah newspaper’s claim Friday that Russia had refused to accept Israel’s explanations over the incident, for which Israel firmly blames Syria.
On Thursday, an Israeli delegation led by Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin visited Moscow in order to brief Russian officials on Israel’s initial investigation of the incident, in which a Russian reconnaissance plane, with 15 crew members on board, was shot down by Syrian air defenses following an Israeli missile strike on a Syrian weapons facility on Monday night.
During their meetings in Moscow, Norkin’s delegation told their Russian counterparts that the Syrian military fired more than 20 anti-aircraft missiles in response to the Israeli attack — a comparatively large number for this type of scenario. Four Israeli F-16 fighter jets were said to have taken part in the airstrike.
In addition, the senior military officer said the majority of the surface-to-air missiles fired by the Syrians — including the missile that hit the Russian spy plane — were fired after the Israeli jets had left the area.
“Most of those 20 were fired while all of our planes were already in Israeli airspace and on their way to land. We proved how the Syrians’ reckless anti-air fire was the direct cause of hitting the Russian aircraft,” the officer said.
The Israeli report into the downing a Russian plane off the coast of Syria during an Israeli airstrike on Monday runs some 40 pages in English and Russian and shows that Syrian anti-aircraft batteries fired dozens of barrages indiscriminately for 40 minutes after the initial Israeli attack.
In a highly unusual move, the IDF acknowledged the airstrike and released some of the findings of its initial investigation, which concluded that Syrian air defense units fired without aiming and “did not bother to ensure that no Russian planes were in the air.”
The IDF’s initial findings were presented in recent days by top Israeli officials, including the head of its air force, Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, to their Russian counterparts in Moscow, and both Israel and Russia said Syria, not Israel, was responsible for the downing of the plane, although Moscow has been publicly critical of Israel over the incident.
According to the Israeli report, initially publicized by the Ynet news site, the “deconfliction mechanism,” a coordination system between the IDF and Russian forces meant to prevent friendly fire incidents over Syria, followed the usual procedure before the strike, as it had done in more than 200 attacks over the past two years.
The report says Syria’s military then activated several anti-aircraft batteries deployed throughout the country, firing for over half an hour, long after the Israeli planes had returned to their base. The Syrians fired dozens of missiles of various types, including the SA-5, a large, advanced missile which downed an Israeli plane over the Galilee in February, Ynet reported.
The Israeli delegation pointed out to their Russian counterparts that the fundamental issue — one likely to repeat itself — is the change in Syrian behavior since it hit an Israeli F-16 fighter in February.
Witness says Ari Fuld’s killer deliberately targeted an American
A falafel shop worker who was saved by a mortally wounded Ari Fuld said Friday that the terrorist deliberately targeted the American-Israeli and had repeatedly sought out someone “who spoke English” before launching his stabbing spree.
Security camera footage from the Gush Etzion Junction shopping mall on Sunday shows Fuld, fatally wounded and with blood pouring down his back, chasing and shooting his attacker 17-year-old Khalil Jabarin.
Jabarin was running after his next target, Hila Peretz, a woman who worked in a local falafel store, when Fuld and another Israeli civilian opened fire, preventing the continuation of the attack and moderately injuring the terrorist.
Peretz, who served Jabarin a falafel shortly before the attack, told The Times of Israel on Friday that Jabarin had wanted to target an American. “After he came inside and ordered his falafel, he asked me two separate times if I spoke English,” recalled Peretz.
“I told him ‘no,’ and asked him what it was that he wanted.”
Jabarin did not answer, but the falafel shop worker was convinced that the questions were part of the 17-year-old’s effort to determine his first target.
“It was not as if he didn’t speak Hebrew and had been asking to speak English so he could make his order. We carried out our conversation in Hebrew,” she explained.
“There were other people in the area that he could have targeted first, but he chose Ari,” she said. “But them he didn’t target, he must have wanted an American.”