Shooting victim Karli Smith remembered

The Telegraph

Syrian missile explodes near Israeli nuclear reactor

A Syrian surface-to-air missile exploded over southern Israel on Thursday, triggering sirens near a secretive nuclear site and prompting retaliatory strikes against Damascus. The Israeli military said the missile, which did not cause any damage or injuries, was fired at an Israeli jet but missed its target and strayed into the Negev desert. “A surface-to-air missile was fired from Syria to Israel’s southern Negev,” said a spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces [IDF]. “In response, we struck the battery from which the missile was launched and additional surface-to-air batteries in Syria.” The missile fired from Syria reportedly landed around 20 miles away from Israel’s Dimona nuclear facility, and comes two weeks after Iran accused Israel of attacking its own Natanz nuclear facility, which was hit by a mysterious explosion. There was some speculation after the missile exploded that it may have been fired by pro-Iran forces in Syria, as a newspaper close to the regime demanded an “eye for an eye” attack on Dimona in an editorial last week. However, an Israeli military official said the missile launched from Syria in the early hours of Thursday morning was not targeting the nuclear site. “There was no intention of hitting the nuclear reactor in Dimona,” said IDF spokesman Hidai Zilberman.