Israeli strikes hit an upscale neighborhood of Damascus on Monday April 1, state media reported. An Agence France-Presse correspondent on site confirmed that the Iranian embassy annex building had been razed by the strike.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli strikes, which killed eight people according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
“The Israeli enemy launched airstrikes from the occupied Golan, targeting the Iranian consulate building in Damascus,” said the Iranian Defense Ministry.
He added that the strike “completely destroyed the building,” located in Mazzeh, a neighborhood that also houses embassies and United Nations buildings. “All those inside were killed or injured,” the ministry continued.
According to information from Iranian state television IRIB, a commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s ideological army, was killed in the strikes. “Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, was martyred in an attack by Zionist regime fighters on the annex of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus,” the Syrian capital, she said. The OSDH also confirms the death of “two Iranian advisers and five members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards”.
“Hossein Akbari, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, and his family were not injured in the Israeli attack,” added the Iranian Nour news agency.