The latest attacks come a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded the demilitarization of much of southern Syria, raising fears of conflict with the country's new leadership.
Israel has launched new airstrikes on the Syrian coast and carried out ground raids in the south of the country, part of a recent wave of attacks that Israel says are necessary to ensure its security and that have strained relations with Syria's new government.
The strikes appeared to be another attempt to keep weapons from the ousted Assad regime out of the hands of groups that might be hostile to Israel.
The Israeli military said Monday evening that it had targeted a weapons depot in Qardah, the hometown of former President Bashar al-Assad. The town is a few miles from a major Russian air base near the coastal city of Latakia. There were no immediate reports of casualties, according to Syria's state news agency SANA.
Hours later, Israeli forces carried out ground raids in two southern Syrian towns, cutting off roads and ransacking military barracks before blowing up warehouses and retreating, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group.
The attacks came a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded the “complete demilitarization” of much of southern Syria “from the forces of the new regime.”
Since a lightning rebel offensive toppled Assad's regime in December, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria, which it says are aimed at preventing weapons from falling into the hands of potentially hostile forces.
He has also deployed troops to a UN-controlled demilitarized zone on the border with Syria and invaded border villages in southern Syria, describing the moves as temporary measures to protect his own security. Many Syrians fear the incursions could escalate into a long-term military occupation.
Syria's caretaker president, Ahmed al-Shara, delivered perhaps the sharpest condemnation of Israel at an Arab summit in Cairo on Tuesday, accusing the country of violating the rights of Syrians for decades. He said Syria remained committed to a ceasefire with Israel signed in 1974, an agreement that Mr. Netanyahu said had “collapsed” since the fall of the Assad regime.
Several countries have condemned the Israeli military's incursion into southern Syria, and in January the United Nations said “Syria's territorial integrity and unity must be fully restored.”
After violence broke out between Syrian government officers and gunmen on the outskirts of Damascus last week, Mr Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to protect the country's Druze minority from Syria's new rulers, a move rejected by Syria's Druze and government leaders.
Mr al-Shara has repeatedly said that Syria does not seek conflict with Israel. At a two-day “national dialogue” conference in Damascus last week, billed as the start of a process to establish an inclusive Syrian government, the final statement rejected Israel’s threat that it would not allow Syrian forces to be present in the south.
However, it is still unclear how the Syrian leadership will react to Israel's demand for demilitarization of the region.
Ewen Ward is a Beirut-based reporter for The Times. More about Ewan Ward
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