BICOM

The Israeli air force struck an abandoned UN facility yesterday which had been used by ISIS fighters as a base before they attacked IDF troops on Sunday morning.

The building, which was abandoned two years ago after the ISIS-affiliated Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade (now known as Khaled Ibn al-Walid Brigade) kidnapped UN peacekeepers, had been used as an arms store and training centre.

In his first comments since Sunday’s incident, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: “Israel is not looking for a fight but when we are faced with provocation — in Gaza, on the Syrian or Lebanese borders — we will respond with full force, as was done here.”

Commentators remains divided over whether Sunday’s attack by ISIS on Israeli soldiers was a locally initiated spur of the moment attack, or whether it reflects an emerging strategy of targeting Israel.

Ma’ariv’s Yossi Melman characterised the ambush as an “anomaly” and argued that the IDF reaction was intended to punish but not inflame hostilities or and risk opening up a front with ISIS on the Syrian border.

In contrast, Alex Fishman suggests that the attack was not a coincidence and that it reflects a definite policy by ISIS to score hits on Israeli targets in the North, as well as in Sinai.

Writing in YNet, he said: “There is a clear link between ISIS’s awakening in the Golan sector against Israel and the increase in its activity in Sinai against Egypt and against Israel, to what is taking place on its eastern fronts, in Raqqa and Mosul: the more ISIS is pushed up against the wall in Iraq and in Syria, the instructions to its branches in the world in general, including along the border with Israel, are to increase efforts to create successes, to counter the heavy blows that it is taking.”