ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Israel on Wednesday carried out several airstrikes on Damascus, the Syrian defense ministry said, adding that the attacks resulted in material damages. A war monitor said at least two were killed in the strikes. “At approximately 21:35 pm today, the Israeli enemy carried out airstrikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of locations in the Damascus countryside,” the Syrian defense ministry said in a statement. “Our air defense responded to the aggression’s missiles and shot down most of them, and the losses were limited to material losses,” it added. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the Israeli strikes targeted positions of the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian militias in the Damascus countryside. At least two Hezbollah members of Syrian nationality were killed and six were injured in the strikes, according to the monitor. Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout its 12-year civil war, often claiming to strike pro-Iran militias, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah group which supports the Syrian army. 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 this is not recognized by most of the international community. 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.
