Syrian media said that Israel fired missiles at the Kafr Souseh neighborhood of Damascus, killing five and wounding 15.
Syrian state media reported that at least five people were killed, 15 wounded, and a number of residential buildings damaged in Israeli air strikes on the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Reuters said, quoting witnesses, that the raids targeted, in the early hours of Sunday morning, a building in the Kafr Souseh neighborhood in central Damascus, near a large security complex that is heavily guarded near Iranian facilities.
Explosions were heard in the center of the capital at around 12:30 (21:30 GMT on Saturday), and the Syrian News Agency (SANA) reported that the Syrian air defenses were “confronting hostile targets in the skies of Damascus.”
And SANA reported, quoting a military source, that five people were killed, including a soldier, in addition to “destroying a number of residential buildings.”
The army said in a statement, “It damaged several civilian homes and caused material damage to a number of neighborhoods in Damascus and its surroundings.”
Footage broadcast by state media showed that a 10-storey building was severely damaged in the attack, with the structure of its lower floors destroyed.
“Sunday’s strike was the deadliest in an Israeli attack in the Syrian capital,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group with an extensive network of sources inside Syria.
Israel did not comment on the air strikes, which come more than a month after an Israeli missile attack on Damascus International Airport, killing four people, including two soldiers.
Israel targets Syria
For nearly a decade, Israel has been conducting air strikes against suspected Iranian-sponsored arms transfers and personnel deployments to neighboring Syria. Israeli officials rarely acknowledged responsibility for specific operations.
Israeli military experts say the raids — which in recent months have targeted Syrian airports and air bases — are part of an escalation of what was a low-intensity conflict aimed at slowing Iran’s growing entrenchment in Syria.
Western intelligence sources said Iran has expanded its military presence in Syria in recent years and has a foothold in most areas controlled by the state, with thousands of members of local militias and paramilitary groups under its command.
Commenting on the latest attack, Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, blamed Israel for “trying to exacerbate the pain and suffering of the Syrian nation.”
“They are trying to exacerbate the pain and suffering of the Syrian nation at a time when it is facing the effects of the recent devastating earthquake,” Al-Kinani said, calling on the UN Security Council to respond to the strikes.
Iran’s proxy militias, led by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, now control vast areas in eastern, south and northwest Syria and in several suburbs around the capital.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has never publicly acknowledged that Iranian forces are working on his behalf in the Syrian civil war, saying Tehran has only military advisers on the ground.
