ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An Iraqi militia group on Monday claimed it attacked a city in the south of Israel.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said in a statement that it carried out an attack on Israel’s southernmost town of Eilat, on the Red Sea.
“The Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted a target in the occupied Umm al-Rashrash, Eilat with appropriate weapons,” read the statement.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced late Sunday night that they shot down “an aircraft” en route to Israel from the east.
“IAF [Israeli Air Force] aircraft intercepted a hostile aircraft that was on route to Israeli territory from the east a short while ago. The target was under IDF surveillance and did not penetrate into Israeli territory,” said the IDF on X.
The group said the attack was carried out in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is at war against the Palestinian Hamas. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 53,000 injured since October.
This is the third time the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed to attack Eilat. The first was in November when the group said it would “strike the enemy stronghold,” and the second was on December 22.
The same group has carried out dozens of drone and rocket strikes on United States forces in Iraq and Syria.
The attack comes as the group continues its targeting of military bases of the US-led global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.
On Sunday, the group said it targeted a US base near Erbil’s airport with drones. The Erbil-based Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD), also known as Kurdistan CT said that the drone was “destroyed and shot down”.
