SOHR: Israel launches air strike in Syria

An Israeli “aggression” launched from the Golan Heights and targeting southern parts of the Syrian capital Damascus killed three people and caused some material damage, the Syrian ministry of defence said yesterday.

Earlier, state TV reported that Syrian air defences shot down a number of missiles in the Damascus countryside.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said that the target of the Israeli strikes were Iranian bases near Damascus. The latest strike follows one on May 14 that killed five soldiers and another one on April 27 which, according to the Observatory, killed 10 combatants, among them six Syrian soldiers, in the deadliest such raid since the start of 2022. Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes there, targeting government positions as well as bases and weapon depots for allied Iran-backed forces and fighters of Lebanon’s militant group Hizbollah.