It was the most serious incident to take place on the strategic plateau since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
“A warplane that penetrated Israeli territory was successfully shot down a short while ago by the air defense systems along the Syrian border,” a military statement said, without giving further details.
Army radio said it was apparently a MiG-21 fighter jet which was shot down by a surface-to-air Patriot missile, with the wreckage landing on the Syrian-controlled side of the plateau.
The downing came just three weeks after Israel shot down a drone over the Golan as heavy fighting raged on the Syrian side, most of which has been seized by rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
Since the uprising erupted more than three years ago, the plateau has been tense, with a growing number of rockets and mortar rounds hitting the Israeli side, most of them stray, prompting occasional retaliatory fire.
But there have been several incidents of intentional fire, one of which killed an Israeli teenager in June.
Israel seized 1,200 square kilometers of the Golan during the Six-Day War of 1967, then annexed it in 1981 in a move never recognized by the international community.
Some 510 square kilometers of the Golan remain on the Syrian side of the ceasefire line, with UN forces overseeing a buffer zone stretching some 70 kilometers from Lebanon in the north to Jordan in the south.
Last Update: Tuesday, 23 September 2014 KSA 10:50 - GMT 07:50
AFP
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/23/Israel-downs-Syria-warplane-on-Golan-Heights-.html
23/9/14
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IDF shoots down Syrian fighter plane infiltrating Israeli territory...
ReplyDeleteThe Israel Defense Forces' aerial defense system on Tuesday fired a Patriot missile and shot down a Syrian Sukhoi 24 fighter jet that infiltrated Israeli territory.
The jet was toppled over the Syrian side of the Quneitra border, after it had flown 800 meters west of the border into Israel and turned around.
The decision to down the jet was made after 1:20 minutes of flight; when the Patriot hit the plane, the Syrian pilots had already turned around and flown back into their territory.
The two pilots had apparently managed to operate their ejection seats within that timeframe, as they were captured in footage released by the Syrian Revolution Coordinators Union parachuting to the ground.
This is the first time since the Lebanon War in the 1980s that the IAF has toppled a Syrian aircraft.
The jet apparently took off from a base in eastern Syria and was toppled after it had reached an altitude of 10,000-14,000 feet. At that height, the plane was capable of launching attacks on the Syrian rebel forces near the Israeli border.
Although Israel did not see any threat of attack on its own territory from that plane, its policy stipulates that any plane that breaches its territorial authority must be downed to avoid security risk..............................http://www.ellanodikhs.net/2014/09/idf-shoots-down-syrian-fighter-plane.html?showComment=1411472056932#c5631597758511067035