Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad says the country will “respond immediately” to any new Israeli aggression against Syrian territory.

“The instruction has been made to respond immediately to any new Israeli attack without (additional) instruction from any higher leadership, and our retaliation will be strong and will be painful against Israel,” Miqdad told AFP on Thursday.

He also vehemently dismissed Western media reports that Israel targeted weapons bound for Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah.

“They absolutely did not achieve their objective and they lied when they said they are targeting Hezbollah,” he said, adding, “There is no way Syria will allow this to happen again.”

On May 5, Syria said the Israeli regime had carried out an airstrike targeting a research center in a suburb of Damascus, following heavy losses of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups at the hands of the Syrian army. According to Syrian media reports, Israeli rockets struck the Jamraya Research Center.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry has sent letters to the United Nations and its Security Council stating that Israel’s aggression shows the links between Tel Aviv and terrorist groups operating in Syria including the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi told reporters in Damascus that Syria had the right and the duty to defend its people by all available means and it would not give in to Israeli acts of aggression.

The Israeli attacks on Syria have made the Middle East more dangerous, the Syrian information minister added.

The Sunday Israeli aggression was Tel Aviv’s second strike on Syria in three days.

The Jamraya facility was also targeted in an Israeli airstrike in January.

The Syrian government says the chaos that erupted in the country over two years ago is being orchestrated from outside.

Anti-Syria countries including Turkey and several Arab states in the region have taken a silent stance toward Tel Aviv’s acts of aggression against Syria.