[17] At 4:30 am on 10 February 2018, an Israeli AH-64 Apache helicopter shot down an Iranian-produced copy of the RQ-170 drone (Saegheh) near the northern town of Beit Shean.

[24] Two weeks later, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) stated that the F-16I was hit by a S-200 surface-to-air missile (SAM) with the crew failing to take proper evasive actions.

[26] Sirens were heard in the early morning in northern Israel and flights at Tel Aviv's international airport were briefly halted.

"[29] The Syrian Assistant Foreign Minister, Ayman Sussan said that they "have full confidence the aggressor will be greatly surprised, because it thought this war—this war of attrition Syria has been exposed to for years—had made it incapable of confronting attacks."

[30] In Syria the events were viewed as a game-changer given that it was the first time the Syrian government made good on promises to respond to violation of its territory.

[32] This incident is extremely unusual, as it is the first time Israel and Iran confronted each other directly since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the beginning of the Iran–Israel proxy conflict.

[7] An Israeli army assessment stated that the twelve retaliatory air strikes destroyed nearly half of Syria's aerial defense systems.