DAMASCUS: The Syrian government said seven civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike in Damascus Tuesday, that a war monitor said targeted a building used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The defense ministry said women and children were among the dead in the strike on a residential and commercial building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of the capital which is home to embassies and security headquarters.
It said the toll was preliminary as rescuers were still combing the rubble.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said: “Israel targeted a building frequented by senior Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah operatives, as well as a car parked in front of the building.”
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said nine people were killed, five of them civilians including a child.
At least two of the dead were foreigners, the Observatory said, without specifying their nationality.
None of the dead were Iranian, the embassy said.
AFPTV footage from the scene showed a building engulfed in smoke, with rubble and torn metal strewn on the ground.
Electrician Adel Habib, 61, who lives in the building which was hit, said the strike was like “Judgment Day.”
“I was on my way home when the explosion happened and communications and electricity were cut off so I could no longer contact my family” inside the building, Habib said.
“These were the longest five minutes of my life until I heard the voices of my wife, children and grandchildren.”
Syrian state television said the strike caused “extensive” damage.
An AFP correspondent said the first three floors of the building had been destroyed and counted about 20 cars damaged by falling debris.
Last week, the Observatory said an Israeli strike on Mazzeh killed four people, including the son-in-law of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli air strike on south Beirut last month.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes in Syria, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence.
Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been among the Syrian government’s most important allies in the country’s more than decade-old civil war.
More than 400,000 people, most of them returning Syrian refugees, have crossed into Syria over the past two weeks, fleeing heavy Israeli air strikes on Lebanon.
Syria says seven civilians killed in Israel Damascus strike
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Syria says seven civilians killed in Israel Damascus strike
- The defense ministry said women and children were among the dead in the strike on a residential and commercial building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of the capital
UNESCO fears for fate of historical sites during Iran war
- “UNESCO is deeply concerned by the first impact that the hostilities are already having on many world heritage sites,” Assomo said
- Tehran’s Golestan palace, damaged in US–Israeli strikes, is testimony to the grandeur of Iran’s civilization in the 19th century
PARIS: UNESCO said it is deeply concerned about the fate of world heritage sites in Iran and across the region, after Tehran’s Golestan palace, often compared to Versailles, and a historic mosque and palace in Isfahan were damaged in the war.
The United Nations’ cultural agency on Wednesday urged all parties to protect the region’s outstanding cultural sites, saying four of Iran’s 29 world heritage sites had been damaged since the start of the US and Israeli war with Iran.
“UNESCO is deeply concerned by the first impact that the hostilities are already having on many world heritage sites,” Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the World Heritage Center, told Reuters, adding he was also concerned for sites in Israel, Lebanon and across the Middle East.
Tehran’s Golestan palace, damaged in US–Israeli strikes, is testimony to the grandeur of Iran’s civilization in the 19th century, he said.
The palace was chosen as the Persian royal residence and seat of power by the Qajar family and shows the introduction of European styles in Persian arts, according to the UNESCO website. The last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, held a coronation ceremony there in 1969.
“We sometimes even compare it with the Versailles Palace in France, for instance, and it has suffered, unfortunately, some damage. We don’t know the extent for the moment. But clearly, with the images that we have been able to receive, we can confirm ... it has been affected,” Eloundou Assomo said.
Photos of the interior of the palace have shown piles of smashed glass and shards of wood on the floor, and shattered woodwork.
Isfahan was one of Central Asia’s most important cities and a key point on the Silk Road trading route. Its Masjed-e Jame (Jameh Mosque) is more than 1,000 years old and shows the development of Islamic art through 12 centuries.
Buildings close to the buffer zone of the prehistoric sites of the Khorramabad Valley have also been damaged, UNESCO said.
UNESCO has shared coordinates of key cultural sites to all parties, Eloundou Assomo said, and was monitoring damage.
“We are calling for the protection of all sites of cultural significance ... everything that tells the history of all the civilizations of the 18 countries in the region,” he said.
