Israel Attacks Syria with F-16s and F-35s

[ricnunes]

Are't bombs harder to defeat than missiles due to their lack of engines?

Well, it depends. Lack of engine in bombs means they have very low IR and visual signature and do not need to deal with their or their intake radar signature. They are also smaller (for the same destructive power) due to lack of engine and fuel, which is also helpful in many ways (detection and higher number carried). They are also cheaper which means more of them are available and losing some of them is not much of a problem.

Missiles on the other hand usually have much longer range which is useful especially with 4th gen aircraft by avoiding detecting the aircraft themselves. They also have more covert low level flight path which avoids most enemy radars using terrain masking. They also have much higher freedom of maneuver due to having engine power and range. Bombs fly within enemy sensor coverage for much longer time and rely on stealth to avoid detection and destruction.

So both have pros and cons and it depends on situation which one is better or if combination of both is best option.

I believe that you pretty much summed it up hornetfinn.

I would say that basically what you said is the reason why Glide Bombs (such as the SDBI, SDBII and others like the SPICE mentioned above) are becoming increasingly more "popular" nowadays.
I would say that Glide Bombs are a very good attempt (and successful for the most part) of having the "best of two worlds" or more precisely having the advantages of both (un-powered) Bombs and Missiles (powered of course) in the same weapon.