Is the Israel Defense Force Most Modern Fighter Aircraft F-35I was hit by a Syrian S-200 or Bird Strike

16 October 2017, Shoigu, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets in Israel to discussed and addressed the situation in the region, especially Syria, terrorism, military and technical cooperation.


On that day, Israeli Defense Force (IDF) claimed that its warplane destroyed a Surface to Air missile battery of Syrian Air Defense Forces that fired a missile against an Israel military aircraft flying over Lebanon.


According to Haaretz newspaper reported that IDF targeted the SAM battery with four precision bombs and the damage is to the extent that SAM battery is no longer operational. As confirmed by IDF, the same SAM battery destroyed, was  the same SAM battery that fired at an Israel military aircraft last march 2017 which prompted them to deploy the Arrow anti-missile system for the first time.


And the Syrian army confirmed the airstrike made by Israel and they said that it caused severe damage. The Syrian Defense Ministry said that Israel violated it's Airspace on the border with Lebanon in Baalbek area which the bombing incident took place at 8:50 am local time.


This incident immediately linked as a nice demonstration of power to Russia-Iran-Syria alliance by some media activist which are pro-Israeli with the visit of the Russian Defense Minister in Tel Aviv.


However, Syrian Defense Forces used Soviet SAM S-200 against the Israel F-35 which directly hit one of the jets forcing the other aircraft to retreat. Yet this contradict the Israeli claim that no hit was confirmed.


Just few hours after the missile incident, Israel media reported that the Israeli Air Force F-35 stealth aircraft went out of service due to alleged collision with a bird during its training flight.


According to the report, the bird strike incident of the F-35 stealth aircraft took place two (2) weeks ago, only reported on that day. The Israeli Air Force did not show a photo of the F-35 stealth fighter after the bird strike.


Despite the fact that F-35 Stealth fighter early on passed the bird strike/collision certification, the Israeli Defense Force reported that the warplane became not serviceable after the bird strike / collision.


If we look at the stealth capability of the F-35 stealth aircraft, according to the assessment report of the Joint Strike Fighter of air power Australia, "The JSF is optimized for best stealth in the forward sector, sharing general air-frame shaping rules common to the F-22A. The notable difference is in the serrated edge circular nozzle of the JSF, which is clearly optimized for best performance in the X and Ku-bands, typical of fighter radars, SAM/AAA tracking systems and missile seekers. To achieve lower costs the JSF accepts notable aft sector stealth limitations, especially when tackling deep or layered air defenses with fighter threats - an acceptable trade-off for shallow littoral and FEBA area battlefield strikes against predominantly short range mobile air defense systems."