SOHR: Syria says three killed in Israeli missile strikes targeting Damascus
The Syrian ministry of defence has said that Israeli surface-to-surface missiles killed three people near Damascus.
Syria’s official news agency SANA quoted a military source as saying, “The Israeli enemy carried out an aggression… that led to the death of three martyrs and some material losses.”
The missiles, that were intercepted by the Syrian air defences, had come from the Israeli-occupied Golan heights.
Other than the three people who were killed in the attack, four members of the air defence crew were wounded according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The Observatory said the Israeli strikes targeted Iranian positions and weapon depots near Damascus after which a fire broke out and ambulances were seen rushing to the site of the strikes.
Previously, 10 combatants, including six soldiers were killed in an airstrike by Israel in central Syria on April 27, in the deadliest such raid since the start of 2022.
Israel’s military has been mounting attacks on what it has described as Iranian-linked targets in Syria. Defending the strikes, the defence forces have called them necessary to prevent its arch-foe Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep.
Tehran-backed forces, including Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah, have put down a presence in Syria since deploying to help President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war which broke out in 2011.
The conflict in Syria, which forced around half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes, has killed nearly half a million people.
Source: WION