Mattis: Israel Doesn’t ‘Have to Wait Until Their Citizens are Dying Under Attack’ to Strike Iran Targets

A missile fired from Syrian territory targeting an Israeli warplane landed in a lemon grove in Hasbani village, southwest Lebanon, on Feb. 10, 2018. (AP Photo)

Defense Secretary James Mattis said Israel exercised its “absolute right to defend itself” in shooting down an Iranian drone that entered the Jewish State’s airspace from Syria.

The UAV entry into Israeli airspace sparked a response from the Israeli Defense Forces that included striking a dozen Iranian targets in Syria just over an hour later.

The drone was reportedly a copy of an American model, the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel UAV, with an 85-foot wingspan that was captured by Iran in December 2011. IDF Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the drone “was detected long before crossing Israeli territory.” It was in Israeli airspace for about a minute and a half before being shot down by an Israeli Air Force Apache attack helicopter.

That was at 4:25 a.m. At 5:34 a.m., IAF jets launched an assault against Iranian targets in Syria including three aerial defense batteries. Iran fired anti-aircraft missiles at the Israeli jet, striking one. Two pilots ejected and landed in Israeli territory; one suffered serious injuries.

At 8:45 a.m., the IDF launched a “large-scale attack” against “the Syrian aerial d

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