JEDDAH: Three fighters were killed and four injured in new Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday near Syria's capital Damascus.
The targets included warehouses used by Hezbollah, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the monitoring group in the UK that has a vast network of sources in Syria.
The strikes also targeted positions of the Syrian army’s elite Fourth Division near the airport in the town of Dimas. One Syrian pro-regime fighter and two foreign, Iran-affiliated combatants were killed in the strikes, the Observatory said.
During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.
Syria’s foreign ministry condemned the attack ‘in the strongest terms,” and called on the UN and the Security Council to “take immediate action” to oblige Israel “to desist from these criminal policies.”
While Israel rarely comments on the strikes it carries out on Syria, it has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its footprint there.
Tehran says it has sent military “advisers” to support the Syrian army during the civil war, which has claimed more than 500,000 lives. Some of those Iranians stationed in Syria have been killed in Israeli strikes.
According to the Observatory, Israel carried out airstrikes in early July targeting Hezbollah sites near the government-held city of Homs, killing a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Israeli strikes also targeted a Syrian air defense base in Tartus province.
