Video shows Israel's Iron Dome intercept a rocket over a ski resort in the Golan Heights
- The Israel Defense Forces shared a video of the moment its Iron Dome air defense system intercepted a missile over a ski resort in the occupied Golan Heights.
- The IDF claims the missile was launched by Iranian forces in Syria on Sunday, calling it a "premeditated attack."
- On Monday, the IDF said that it was targeting Iran's Quds Forces in Syria, and confirmed it had carried out a series of strikes.
- Syria's military said it destroyed most of the missiles before they could reach their targets, though a monitoring group said 11 people were killed.
- The IDF accused Iran of "attempting to entrench itself in Syria" and said it would "continue operating as needed to defend Israeli civilians."
The Israel Defense Forces shared a video showing the moment that its Iron Dome defense system intercepted a missile, which it says was launched by Iranian forces in Syria, over a ski resort.
In the video, a woman skis in the Hermon resort, in the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights, when the defense system intercepts the missile. An IDF spokesman confirmed to Business Insider that the video shows an Iraeli missile taking off in the background as the woman skis.
The IDF tweeted on Monday: "On Sunday, Iranian Quds Forces operating in Syria launched a surface-to-surface rocket from Syria" aimed at the Golan Heights, which Israel annexed in 1981 in a move that was not recognized internationally. The Quds Forces are elite units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
"The Iron Dome Aerial Defense System intercepted the rocket," the IDF said.
Israel's Iron Dome, which has been operating since 2011, is a missile interceptor system that detects and shoots down incoming rockets.
The IDF claimed that the missile was launched by Iran in a "premeditated" attack intended to stop Israel from conducting airstrikes against its troops, The Times of Israel reported.
After the missile launch, the IDF said that it started striking Iranian military targets in Syria, where Iran has sent military personnel to support President Bashar al-Assad in the country's civil war.
It said that it hit munition storage sites, a site at Damascus International Airport, an Iranian intelligence site, and an Iranian military training camp.
UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 11 fighters, including two Syrians, were killed in that attack, according to the BBC.
Iran's air force chief Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh said his country was "fully ready and impatient to confront the Zionist regime and eliminate it from the earth," according to the Young Journalist Club, a website supervised by Iranian state TV, as cited by Reuters.
Read more: Israeli military tweets that a missile attack on Iranian elite forces in Syria is underway
Israel's announcement was a change from Israel's usual policy staying quiet about its covert military operations in Syria, even as tensions have escalated quickly between forces within the two neighboring countries.
Syria's military said that Israel conducted intensive airstrikes with successive waves of guided missiles just after 1 a.m. on Monday, the Associated Press reported. But it said that Syrian air defenses destroyed most of the missiles before they could reach their targets.
On Sunday, before the missile over the Golan Heights, Syrian state media said that the country's air defenses repelled an Israeli air raid near Damascus International Airport, the BBC reported.
The IDF warned Syria not to "harm" any Israelis or any Israeli territory. It said that the rocket the IDF intercepted showed that Iran "is attempting to entrench itself in Syria, endangering the State of Israel & regional stability."
"We hold the Syrian regime responsible for everything taking place within Syria and warn them against targeting Israel or permitting others to target Israel from their soil," the IDF wrote.
"We are prepared for all scenarios and will continue operating as needed to defend Israeli civilians."