On April 9, Israeli aircraft carried out a missile strike on a Syrian airbase following the Assad government’s chemical weapons attack in Ghouta. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, which was the first to publicly detail the attack, two Israeli F-15 warplanes fired a total of eight cruise missiles from Lebanese airspace on Syria’s Al Tiya (T-4) military base. Questioned on the matter, an Israeli military spokesman said he had no immediate comment. “Russia had to publicly identify Israel this time to make it clear this was not an American attack, because an American attack would have forced them to be more vocal in condemning this,” Yossi Kuperwasser, senior fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told Bloomberg. Syrian opposition media reported that at least 14 people, including Iranians, were killed in the strike.