Suspected Israeli airstrike targets Damascus

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A suspected Israeli airstrike targeted a residential area in the southern part of Damascus, Syrian state media reported on Wednesday.

Syrian state media SANA reported that “An Israeli aggression targeted the Kafr Sousa residential area in Damascus.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor, also reported “violent” explosions in Damascus as a result of a “new Israeli targeting of Syrian territories.”

SANA cited a source from the Syrian defense ministry as saying that "two civilians were killed and another injured" as a result of the strike.
 
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have not commented on the attack. Israel rarely claims responsibility for attacks attributed to it in Syria. 

The targeted residential area is located in the southwestern part of the Syrian capital, an area which Israel often targets under the pretexts of the presence of pro-Iran militia groups and members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

On January 29, an IRGC commander was killed along with six others in a suspected Israeli airstrike targeting several points in southern Damascus.

Four members of the IRGC, including two senior military advisors to Syria, were killed when a suspected Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the Mezzeh neighborhood of southwestern Damascus on January 20. 

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout its nearly 13-year civil war, often claiming to strike pro-Iran militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah that supports the Syrian army. Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate its arch-rival Iran gaining a foothold there.

Updated on February 23, 2024 at 9:00 pm