A military source with access to records from the 2018 downing of an Israeli F-16 by Syrian anti-aircraft fire on Wednesday rejected an account given earlier by former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot at a ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth conference.
Eisenkot, now chairman of the Yashar! party, said he was unable to reach Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for up to two hours and decided on his own to launch a broad strike in Syria. According to the military source, however, events unfolded differently.
The source said that on February 10, 2018, at around 6 a.m., an aircraft returning from a mission in Syria was hit by shrapnel and crashed inside Israel.
According to the records described by the source, Netanyahu was informed immediately and approved an operational response plan prepared for such an incident: strikes on three Syrian radar systems and an additional Iranian target. The source said that strike was carried out at 6:20 a.m.
Reports from Syria, however, only emerged at around 9 a.m. of Israeli strikes in the Damascus area, about three hours after the aircraft was downed. An hour later, the IDF announced that it had carried out a “large-scale” strike targeting three Syrian air-defense batteries and four Iranian targets. The military said at the time that 12 targets had been struck in total.
Wreckage of the Israeli F-16 that crashed in 2018
(Photo: AFP)
According to the military source, Netanyahu scheduled another situation assessment for 11:30 a.m. to consider whether an additional response was necessary. Eisenkot, then the IDF chief of staff, decided that there should be no further response until another assessment at 5 p.m., the source said.
At the afternoon assessment with the General Staff, Eisenkot and all members of the military leadership concluded that no further response was required, according to the source.
Eisenkot said, “It’s behind us,” and then-defense minister Avigdor Lieberman also approved the recommendation, the source said. Yashar! rejected the military source’s account.
“It is regrettable that an anonymous military source in uniform chooses to brief against former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot with lies,” the party said in a statement. “It is also surprising that he knows Netanyahu was awake. It would be interesting to know who this is. The details of the incident presented today by Eisenkot are, of course, accurate, and Eisenkot stands behind them.”
Eisenkot: ‘He suddenly appeared in the command center’
Eisenkot gave a sharply different version of events earlier Wednesday at the “Time for Decision: Democracy and Society” conference.
“We strike a command vehicle in Syria that had sent a drone into Israel, and during the operation an F-16 is shot down at 5 a.m.,” Eisenkot said. “Fortunately, the pilots eject over our territory. I saw this as a very serious incident.”
“I am the chief of staff, and together with the head of Military Intelligence and the Air Force commander, I decide to carry out a very broad strike and include the destruction of Syrian batteries,” he said.
Netanyahu and Eisenkot during Eisenkot’s tenure as IDF chief of staff
(Photo: AFP)
Eisenkot said he then tried to brief and consult Netanyahu. “I ask to update and consult with the prime minister, and for an hour or two I cannot reach him,” he said. “I make the decision to carry out a very broad strike to destroy Syrian anti-aircraft batteries and Iranian targets, and suddenly he appears in the Air Force command center three or four hours later, after I had tried through his military secretary to reach him, update him and consult with him.”
Eisenkot said the prime minister’s military secretary told him he had also been unable to reach Netanyahu and told him: “Do what you think is right.”
“To his credit,” Eisenkot said of Netanyahu, “when he arrives, he backs my actions.”
Eisenkot added that there had been plans to continue striking, but said Netanyahu halted them before what he described as a highly important attack.