An Israeli Air Force jet (Creative Commons).

The Syrian government called it an act of “Israeli arrogance and aggression” that raised the risks that the two-year-old civil conflict could spread outside of Syria’s borders, The New York Times reported. 

The Syrian military said a scientific research facility in a Damascus suburb had been hit, killing two people, and denied that a convoy had been the target, according to The Times.

From The Times:

Amnon Sofrin, a retired brigadier general and former Israeli intelligence officer, told reporters in Jerusalem on Wednesday that Hezbollah, which is known to have been storing some of its more advanced weapons in Syria, was now eager to move everything it could to Lebanon. He said Israel was carefully watching for convoys transferring weapons systems from Syria to Lebanon.

Israel’s air force chief, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, said on Tuesday that Syria was a prime example of “the weakening governance in neighboring countries that heralds greater exposure to hostile activity.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently raised alarm about the potential diversion of Syria’s chemical-weapons arsenal, Bloomberg reported.

“We must look around us, at what is happening in Iran and its proxies and at what is happening in other areas, with the deadly weapons in Syria, which is increasingly coming apart,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet.

Syrian rebels have been fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad since March 2011. The United Nations estimated at least 60,000 people have died in the conflict.

“We work every day in order to lessen the immediate threats, to create better conditions so that we will be victorious in future wars,” Eshel said. “This is a struggle in which the Air Force is a central player, from here to thousands of kilometers away.”

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage on the Syria conflict here.

Reach Executive Producer Agnus Dei Farrant here.