Syria in mourning. Fifteen people, including civilians, were killed on Sunday February 19, according to an NGO, by an Israeli strike on a residential building in Damascus, in a secure neighborhood housing an Iranian cultural center and the headquarters of several security organs. The strike targeted the Kafr Sousa district, a high-security area where the headquarters of security and intelligence services are located, and where senior officials live.
“At 12:22 a.m., the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial assault from the occupied Golan Heights, targeting several areas of Damascus and its surroundings, including residential areas,” the Syrian Defense Ministry said. Images released by the state agency Sana show an apartment building almost completely destroyed, parts of which have collapsed in the street below.
The Ministry of Defense reported a provisional toll of five dead, “including a soldier”, and fifteen wounded “some in critical condition”. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), a non-governmental organization with a vast network of sources in Syria, the toll is 15 dead, including civilians.
The strike, according to the OSDH, hit a building near an Iranian cultural center and “targeted sites including Iranian militias and Lebanese Hezbollah”. It is “the deadliest Israeli attack on the Syrian capital” to date, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the OSDH. According to the official Sana agency, several buildings in total were damaged.
Since the beginning of the war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in its neighbor, primarily targeting positions of the Syrian army, Iranian forces and Lebanese Hezbollah, allies of the Syrian regime.
The Jewish state rarely comments on its strikes against Syria but regularly asserts that it will not let Iran extend its influence to Israel’s borders. The Israeli authorities frequently denounce the military aid provided by Iran to Damascus as well as to Shiite groups such as Hezbollah.
In early January, four people, including two Syrian soldiers, were killed, according to the OSDH, in Israeli strikes against Damascus International Airport, which had put this infrastructure out of service for several hours. According to the NGO, the attack had targeted “positions of Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups in the airport and its surroundings, including an arms depot”.
At the end of 2022, in presenting its outlook for 2023, the Israeli army warned that it “does not accept a Hezbollah 2.0 in Syria”. The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the raid on the airport, denouncing “a new episode of Israeli crimes” and calling on the UN “to take urgent measures and punish those responsible”.
Aleppo airport, the second largest in the country, also had to close for several days in September following Israeli raids. 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. The country was also hard hit by the February 6 earthquake in areas adjacent to the Turkish border, with the death toll at least 3,688 and thousands homeless.