Syria
A cloud of smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike targetted the Syrian capital city of Damascus on July 20, 2020. File photo: AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least two people were killed in an Israeli strike near the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday, state media reported. A war monitor said the strike targeted a pro-Iran center.
“At approximately 11:40 pm today, the Israeli enemy launched an air assault from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of points in the southern region, killing two people and injuring a soldier,” Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said, citing a military source.
It added that Syrian air defense systems responded to the attack and shot down some of the missiles.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the strike targeted a pro-Iran service center, affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, in the Sayyida Zeinab area in southern Damascus - a stronghold for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and where an important Shiite shrine is located.
According to the Observatory, three people were killed, including an elderly woman, and 11 were injured in the strike.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout its nearly 13-year civil war, often claiming to target pro-Iran militias that support the Syrian army, such as Hezbollah.
While it rarely comments on strikes attributed to it in Syria, Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate its arch-rival Iran gaining a foothold there.
The strikes have increased since October 7, when Palestinian Hamas militants launched an unprecedented, large-scale attack on Israeli territory that prompted significant retaliation.
Last week, another Israeli strike in southern Syria killed an army officer.
Earlier in June, Israeli airstrikes near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least 12 pro-Iran militiamen.
A few days prior, another Israeli strike on the coastal city of Baniyas killed a two-year-old girl and caused material damage.
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