Syrian media: 5 dead in Israeli airstrikes in Damascus

DAMASK (AP) — Israeli airstrikes hit a residential area in the Syrian capital of Damascus early Sunday morning, killing at least five people and injuring 15, Syrian state news reported.

Around 00:30 local time, loud explosions were heard over the central area of ​​​​the capital, and SANA reported that Syrian air defense systems “confronted enemy targets in the skies around Damascus.”

The Syrian state news agency SANA, citing a military source, said five people were killed, including a soldier, and 15 civilians were injured, along with “the destruction of a number of residential buildings.” The news agency also reported that the strikes damaged a medieval citadel in the center of Damascus and an institute of applied arts located there.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 15 people, including a woman, were killed in attacks on targets linked to Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah group. They took place in the countryside of Damascus and at an Iranian school in the Kafr Souss area of ​​the capital, the report said.

Samer Abdo, an engineer who lives in an apartment building that was damaged in Kafr Souz on a prestigious residential street, was poking around his apartment through broken glass and broken wood on Sunday morning. Abdo told The Associated Press that his family woke up horrified that the building was shaking.

“At first we thought it was an earthquake like the one that happened two weeks ago,” he said.

Mohamad Dulo, another resident of the area, said: “All the windows faced the street and people also fled to the street.”

Dulo said he did not understand why the area had been targeted. “This is a residential area,” he said. “There is nothing (military) here.”

There was no immediate Israeli announcement regarding the attack. An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment.

Israeli airstrikes often hit targets around Damascus, but rarely hit residential areas in the city. Saturday night strikes were the first since the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6.

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The latest attack on Damascus was on January 2, when the Syrian army reported that the Israeli military fired rockets at the Syrian capital’s international airport early Monday morning, incapacitating it, killing two soldiers and injuring two more.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes against targets in government-controlled areas of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses these operations.

However, Israel has acknowledged that it has targeted the bases of Iranian-allied militant groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Israeli strikes come against the backdrop of a wider shadow war between Israel and Iran. Attacks on airports in Damascus and Aleppo were sparked by fears that they were being used to bring Iranian weapons into the country.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not explicitly mention the strikes, he told his cabinet on Sunday that Israel will continue to defend itself against what it sees as Iranian aggression.

“Iranian attacks will not discourage us. We will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and we will not allow it to gain a foothold along our northern borders. We are doing everything and will do everything to protect our citizens, and we are responding strongly to attacks against us,” he said.

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