AMMAN, Feb 19 (Reuters) – An Israeli rocket strike early on Sunday hit a building in central Damascus, killing five people and destroying several buildings in a densely populated district, witnesses said. and officials said.
The strike hit near a security complex around where Syria’s ally Iran has set up bases, two intelligence sources said.
An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment.
Citing a Syrian military source, state media said Israel carried out airstrikes targeting several areas of Damascus shortly after midnight, killing five and wounding 15. civilians.
“It caused damage to many civilian houses and material damage to many neighborhoods in Damascus and its surroundings,” the Syrian Army said in a statement.
Syrian foreign minister Faisal Mekdad said the strike should be considered a “crime against humanity” because it came less than two weeks after the February 6 earthquake that left more than 5,800 dead across the country.
It was not immediately clear if the Israeli strike was aimed at a specific individual, but two Western intelligence sources said the target was a logistics center in a building run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). .
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Iran and Russia have both helped President Bashar al-Assad turn the tide of the country’s civil war in his favor through military and economic support. Tehran and Moscow have both condemned the strikes and said they threaten regional stability.
[1/5] Police officers stand near a damaged building at the site of a rocket attack, in the central Kafr Sousa neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, February 19, 2023. REUTERS/Firas Makdessi
Edmond Ajji from Syria’s antiquities directorate told Reuters that the capital’s historic walls suffered some damage in the incident.
But two Syrian military sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said the stray anti-aircraft rockets were fired in response to missiles hitting the area around the fortress. .
Pro-Iran Hezbollah’s top commander Imad Moughniyeh was killed in 2008 in a bombing in the same neighborhood, Kafr Sousa, a heavily guarded area where residents say several Iranian security agencies are located, including a cultural center.
Although officials rarely acknowledge responsibility for specific operations, Israel has carried out air strikes against suspected Iranian-backed arms transfers and personnel deployments in Syria for nearly a decade.
Israel has also in recent months stepped up strikes on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran’s increasing use of air supply lines to deliver weapons to its allies in Syria and Lebanon. , including Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The strikes are part of an escalation in a low-intensity conflict whose goal is to slow Iran’s growing grip on Syria, Israeli military experts said.
Iran’s proxy militias, led by Hezbollah, now hold large areas in eastern, southern and northwestern Syria and many suburbs around the capital.
Assad has never publicly acknowledged that Iranian forces are acting on his behalf in the Syrian civil war, saying Tehran only has military advisers on the ground.
Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman and Firas Makdesi and Kinda Makieh in Damascus; additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Jonathan Oatis, Kirsten Donovan
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