(Damascus) The Israeli air force carried out strikes in different areas of the Damascus suburbs during the night from Sunday to Monday, announced the official Syrian press agency Sana.
“At approximately 11:05 p.m. […] the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial attack […] by targeting different points around Damascus,” a security source told the agency.
“Our anti-aircraft defense shot down missiles while others caused limited material damage,” continues this source.
An AFP correspondent said he heard longer than usual explosions in the suburbs of Damascus, the target of numerous strikes attributed by the Syrian authorities to the Israeli army.
Questioned by AFP, the Israeli army did not comment on this new information.
Israel rarely comments on its operations in Syria, but says it wants to prevent Iran, its sworn enemy, from establishing itself on its doorstep, particularly through its allies such as Hezbollah.
These strikes have increased since the start on October 7 of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, triggered by a bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), the strikes during the night from Sunday to Monday targeted “Hezbollah sites” in the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood and near the Damascus airport.
Although it did not comment on the strikes in the suburbs of Damascus, the Israeli army nevertheless reported numerous shots from Lebanon towards northern Israel on Sunday evening.
“The army responded by targeting the origin of these shots. Earlier today (Sunday), we struck a Hezbollah terrorist cell,” she said in a statement.
The head of the Israeli army Herzi Halevi also visited the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon on Sunday, a front which has heated up in the wake of the Israel/Hamas war.
To return to “calm and security,” Israel must “cause damage, deter, kill Hezbollah operatives and demonstrate its superiority, which can also result in strikes or war,” he said. on site according to the army.
Three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed Friday in an Israeli drone strike on their car in southern Syria, according to the OSDH.
On December 2, two Syrian members of Hezbollah and two officers of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, died in Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah sites near Damascus, according to the OSDH.