Israeli missile strikes target Damascus: State media

17-03-2024
Rudaw
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Syrian military on Sunday said it responded to a series of Israeli missile strikes targeting the country, which resulted in the injury of a regime soldier and material damages. 

“At approximately 00:42 after midnight, the Israeli enemy launched airstrikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of positions in the southern region,” Syria’s state SANA news agency said, citing a military source. 

At least one Syrian soldier was injured and the strikes inflicted material damages, the source said, adding that Syrian air defense systems “responded to the aggression’s missiles and shot down some of them.” 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said that the strikes targeted two sites including a weapons depot in the Qalamoun Mountains, northeast of the capital Damascus, belonging to the Syrian military and used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. 

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout it 12-year civil war, often claiming to strike pro-Iran militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah group that supports the Syrian army. 

While it rarely comments on strikes attributed to it in Syria, Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate its arch-rival Iran to gain a foothold there. 

Earlier this month, an Israeli strike near the city of Baniyas on the Syrian coast killed an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) member and two others. 

The Golan Heights were previously controlled by Syria but were seized by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967 and annexed in 1981, although their annexation has not been recognized by most of the international community.  
 

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