Israel launched rocket attacks on Damascus reported dead
2023.02.19 12:19
Israel launched rocket attacks on Damascus reported dead
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – Witnesses and officials reported that a building in central Damascus was struck early on Sunday by an Israeli rocket, killing five people and causing damage to a number of buildings in the densely populated area.
According to two intelligence sources, the strike occurred close to a security complex in which bases belonging to Iran, a ally of Syria, have been established.
State media reported shortly after midnight that Israel had carried out air strikes targeting several areas of Damascus, resulting in five civilian deaths and 15 injuries, citing a Syrian military source.
According to a statement released by the Syrian army, “it caused damage to several civilian homes and material damage to a number of neighbourhoods in Damascus and its vicinity.”
The strike, according to Syrian foreign minister Faisal Mekdad, should be considered a “crime against humanity” because it occurred less than two weeks after the Feb. 6 earthquake, which killed more than 5,800 people across the country.
Although it was not immediately clear whether the Israeli strike was directed at a specific individual, two Western intelligence sources stated that the target was an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-run logistics center in the building.
With financial and military assistance, Iran and Russia both assisted President Bashar al-Assad in reversing the course of the country’s civil war in his favor. The strikes, according to Tehran and Moscow, posed a threat to regional stability.
Reuters was informed by Edmond Ajji from Syria’s antiquities directorate that the incident had caused some damage to the historic citadel of the capital.
However, according to two anonymous sources from the Syrian military, straggler anti-aircraft rockets fired in response to the missiles struck the citadel’s vicinity.
In 2008, pro-Iran Hezbollah’s top commander, Imad Moughniyeh, was killed in a bombing in the same neighborhood, Kafr Sousa. Residents say that several Iranian security agencies, including a cultural center, are in this heavily patrolled area.
Israel has been conducting air strikes in Syria for nearly a decade against alleged Iranian-sponsored weapons transfers and personnel deployments, despite the fact that officials rarely acknowledge responsibility for specific operations.
Israel has also increased its attacks on Syrian airports and air bases in recent months to stop Iran from using more aerial supply lines to deliver arms to its allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.
According to Israeli military experts, the strikes are part of an escalation of a low-intensity conflict aimed at slowing Iran’s growing presence in Syria.
Hezbollah-led Iranian proxy militias now control large portions of eastern, southern, and western Syria, as well as several suburbs surrounding the capital.
Assad has claimed that Tehran only has military advisers on the ground and has never acknowledged publicly that Iranian forces are acting on his behalf in the civil war in Syria.
