Fifteen people were killed Sunday in an Israeli strike on Damascus, which targeted a neighborhood housing the headquarters of several security services according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
It was the deadliest Israeli strike on Damascus since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011, according to the Observatory, a UK-based NGO with an extensive network of sources in Syria.
It particularly targeted the Kafr Sousa district, a high security sector which houses the headquarters of the security and intelligence services and where senior officials live.
According to an AFP correspondent, a building was targeted and a gaping crater was visible in front of the building’s entrance.
According to the OSDH, the strike targeted a meeting attended by Syrian military officials.
Israeli missiles also targeted a warehouse used by pro-regime fighters including the Lebanese Hezbollah, near Damascus, according to the director of the OSDH, Rami Abdel Rahman.
The Syrian Ministry of Defense reported a provisional toll of five dead, “including a soldier”, and 15 wounded.
He claimed that the “Israeli enemy” “carried out an aerial assault from the occupied (Syrian) Golan Heights, targeting several areas of Damascus and its surroundings, including residential areas”.
He assured that the Syrian DCA had “shot down several missiles”.
According to the OSDH, the toll reached 15 dead, including two civilians, including a woman killed in the Mazraa district, in the heart of Damascus, who could have been the victim of the fall of an anti-aircraft shell.
Asked by AFP, a spokesman for the Israeli army declined to comment on this information. Israel regularly carries out strikes in Syria, in particular against the pro-Iranian militias engaged alongside the power, but does not confirm them.
Residential areas of Damascus are rarely targeted.
Residents of the capital were awakened by loud explosions.
The Director General of Syrian Antiquities, Nazir Awad, told AFP that historic buildings near the citadel of Damascus had been “severely damaged by the fall of an Israeli missile”.
The AFP correspondent found that these buildings were damaged, but that the citadel was intact.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced “an aggression which is part of the systematic air attacks against civilian targets (..)”, stressing that they intervene while Syria “continues to suffer from the effects of the earthquake” .
These are the first Israeli strikes since the February 6 earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey, killing more than 44,000 people.
In Tehran, the spokesman for Iranian diplomacy, Nasser Kanani, “strongly condemned the attacks of the Zionist regime”.
The Iranian agency Tasnim for its part assured “that no Iranian was affected”, following information on social networks reporting the death of Iranian officials.
She pointed out that the strike targeted “exactly the place” where Hezbollah’s top military leader, Imad Moughniyeh, was killed in 2008 in an attack the Shiite movement blamed on Israel.
Russia, an ally of Damascus, also “strongly condemned” these strikes, calling on Israel to “end the armed provocations” against Syria, which could endanger “the whole region”.
In Gaza, the Palestinian movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad have also denounced the Israeli strikes.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in its neighbor since 2011, primarily targeting positions of the Syrian army, Iranian forces and Hezbollah.
Israel regularly asserts that it will not allow Iran to extend its influence to its borders.
“We won’t let Iran get nuclear weapons and we won’t let it get a foothold on our northern border,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the weekly government meeting, without mentioning Sunday’s strikes.
In early January, strikes had targeted Damascus airport, targeting according to the OSDH “positions of Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups”.
Triggered by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, the war in Syria has claimed around 500,000 lives, devastated the country’s infrastructure and displaced millions of people.
19/02/2023 19:50:44 – Beirut (AFP) © 2023 AFP