DAMASCUS: Israel struck the vicinity of the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday, injuring one soldier, the Syrian defense ministry said, days after a similar strike.
“The Israeli enemy carried out airstrikes from the north of the occupied Palestinian territories targeting sites near Damascus,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that a soldier was injured during the rare daytime attack.
Israel, which rarely comments on individual strikes but has acknowledged carrying out hundreds, usually launches air strikes on Syria overnight.
An AFP correspondent in Damascus hear loud noises as rockets fell near the capital.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli strikes targeted sites in the Dimas area of the Damascus countryside, where Iran-backed groups and the Syrian military operate.
An Israeli strike on Friday targeted Syrian military sites near Damascus International Airport and in the southern countryside of the capital, according to the Britain-based war monitor.
In September, five soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike around Damascus, and Israeli airstrikes in June put Damascus airport out of service for nearly two weeks.
Since the civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes against its northern neighbor, targeting government troops as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters.
Israel has said its air campaign is necessary to stop arch-foe Iran gaining a foothold on its doorstep.
Syria’s war, which erupted after the brutal repression of anti-government protests, has killed nearly half a million people and forced around half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.
Israel strikes Damascus area: Syrian ministry
https://arab.news/mqmyb
Israel strikes Damascus area: Syrian ministry
- Syrian soldier was injured during the rare daytime attack.
- The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli strikes targeted sites in the Dimas area of the Damascus countryside
The West Bank soccer field slated for demolition by Israel
- The move is likely to eliminate one of the few spaces where Palestinian children are able to run and play
BETHLEHEM: Israeli authorities have ordered the demolition of a soccer field in a crowded refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, eliminating one of the few spaces where Palestinian children are able to run and play.
“If the field gets demolished, this will destroy our dreams and our future. We cannot play any other place but this field, the camp does not have spaces,” said Rital Sarhan, 13, who plays on a girls’ soccer team in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem.
The Israeli military issued a demolition order for the soccer field on December 31, saying it was built illegally in an area that abuts the concrete barrier wall that Israel built in the West Bank.
“Along the security fence, a seizure order and a construction prohibition order are in effect; therefore, the construction in the area was carried out unlawfully,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Mohammad Abu Srour, an administrator at Aida Youth Center, which manages the field, said the military gave them seven days to demolish the field.
The Israeli military often orders Palestinians to carry out demolitions themselves. If they do not act, the military steps in to destroy the structure in question and then sends the Palestinians a bill for the costs.
According to Abu Srour, Israel’s military told residents when delivering the demolition order that the soccer field represented a threat to the separation wall and to Israelis.
“I do not know how this is possible,” he said.
Israeli demolitions have drawn widespread international criticism and coincide with heightened fears among Palestinians of an organized effort by Israel to formally annex the West Bank, the area seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel accelerated demolitions in Palestinian refugee camps in early 2025, leading to the displacement of 32,000 residents of camps in the central and northern West Bank. Human Rights Watch has called the demolitions a war crime. Israel has said they are intended to disrupt militant activity.
