Russia: Syria held back fire as Zionists used civilian aircraft as cover in Homs raid

The illegal Zionist entity has one again used civilian aircraft as a shield against Syrian air defense systems during its attacks on the West Asian country, says a Russian general.

“On October 13, from 23:35 to 23:39, four F-16 tactical fighters of the Israeli Air Force entered Syrian airspace in the US-occupied al-Tanf zone in Homs Province and struck a phosphate ore processing plant in the Palmyra region,” Rear Admiral Vadim Kulit, deputy head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria, said at a briefing.

Kulit said the Syrian military, however, decided not to target the Israeli jets that carried out the strike in central Syria because there were two civilian airliners in the sky at the time.

“The Syrian military leadership decided not to use air defense systems, since at the time of the Israeli aviation attack, two civilian passenger aircraft were in the zone of destruction of the anti-aircraft systems,” Kulit said, Sputnik news reported.

The Syrian Defense Ministry announced earlier that the Wednesday attack killed one soldier and injured three others.

Israel has repeatedly used civilian aircraft as a shield against Syrian air defense systems in its aggression against the Arab country.

Wednesday’s attack came just days after Syria’s air defenses thwarted an Israeli missile attack on a military air base, known as T-4, in Homs, shooting down most of the incoming projectiles.

That aerial assault had been initiated from the direction of the al-Tanf area as well, with Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reporting that it wounded six soldiers and resulted in some material losses.