At least 15 people, including civilians, were killed in an Israeli missile strike on Damascus on Sunday, the AFP news agency quoted the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying.
Israel strikes Damascus 2 weeks after earthquake
Israeli airstrikes targeted a residential area in central Damascus in the early hours of Sunday. An unspecified number of people were killed and wounded, Syrian state media agency SANA reported, citing a source in the Damascus police command.
Loud explosions were heard in the capital at around 12.30 local time, and SANA reported that the Syrian air defense was “engaging with hostile targets in the sky around Damascus.” There was no immediate statement from Israel on the attack. Israeli airstrikes often target areas around Damascus. Saturday night’s attack was the first since a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria on February 6.
The last reported attack on Damascus was on 2 January, when the Syrian military reported that Israeli forces fired missiles towards the Syrian capital’s international airport early Monday, putting it out of service and killing two soldiers. One was killed and two others were injured.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.
However, Israel has acknowledged that it targets targets of Iran-affiliated militant groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The Israeli strikes come amid a widening shadow war between Israel and Iran. The attacks on airports in Damascus and Aleppo were carried out over fears that they were being used to ship Iranian weapons into the country.
(with AP input)