An Israeli strike targeted a new road linking Syria to Lebanon on Thursday morning, as part of Israeli attempts to cut off supply routes to Lebanese Hezbollah, an NGO said without reporting any casualties.
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Israel has intensified its raids on Syria at the same time as its escalation in Lebanon, where it has been carrying out intensive strikes for more than two weeks on the strongholds of pro-Iranian Hezbollah, whose leader it killed.
“Israeli aircraft carried out a strike which targeted the road linking Syria to Lebanon in the region of Qoussair”, in central Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
The national information agency (ANI, official Lebanese) for its part reported that an “enemy drone carried out strikes on the border between Lebanon and Syria”.
“This is the second time that this region has been targeted, after a first strike on October 5,” said the NGO based in the United Kingdom and which has a vast network of sources in Syria.
According to the director of the OSDH, Rami Abdel Rahman, this strike is part of attempts to “cut off Hezbollah’s supply routes”.
Last week, Israeli aircraft carried out a raid in eastern Lebanon near the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, cutting the main road between the two countries.
Israel’s strikes on the Lebanese-Syrian border pose a “great risk” to displaced civilians from Lebanon trying to enter Syria and hamper humanitarian operations, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Monday.
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, Israeli aircraft also carried out raids on the central regions of Homs and Hama, according to the official Syrian agency.
Tuesday evening, a violent Israeli airstrike on the Mazzé neighborhood in Damascus left 13 dead, including nine civilians, according to the OSDH.
According to the NGO, it had targeted a building frequented by members of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of raids on the country targeting the Syrian army and Tehran-backed groups, including Hezbollah, deployed in support of government forces.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on these strikes but say they will not allow Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy, to expand its presence in Syria.