BEIRUT: Israel struck an apartment belonging to Hezbollah in a stronghold of pro-Iran groups south of Damascus on Sunday, killing nine people including a commander, a war monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one of the dead was a Lebanese commander of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Syria.
Israel has increased strikes on Syria since an all-out war with Hezbollah in Lebanon erupted on September 23.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based monitor, told AFP that the commander “was active in Syria and held Lebanese nationality.” The man’s name is not yet known.
The monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, said that “nine people lost their lives — four civilians (a woman and her three children) of Syrian nationality, and five others, including a Hezbollah commander.”
It said the strike hit “an apartment in a building in the Sayyida Zeinab area” south of the Syrian capital.
According to the monitor, 14 others were wounded in the strike which “targeted individuals in an apartment inhabited by Lebanese families and Hezbollah members.”
Some of those killed in the strike “remain unidentified,” the Observatory said.
Syria’s official SANA news agency reported an “Israeli aggression targeting a residential building in the Sayyida Zeinab” area, home to a major Shiite shrine.
It later reported a death toll of “seven civilians, including children and women,” and 20 wounded.
On Saturday, four pro-Iran fighters were among five people killed in Israeli strikes in north and northwest Syria, the Observatory reported.
Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and fighters including from Hezbollah.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
Israel strike on Syria kills 9 including Hezbollah commander: monitor
https://arab.news/m2e4j
Israel strike on Syria kills 9 including Hezbollah commander: monitor
- Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one of the dead was a Lebanese commander of Hezbollah in Syria
- Monitor said “nine people lost their lives — four civilians of Syrian nationality, and five others, including a Hezbollah commander”
Death toll in Iran protests over 3,000, rights group says
- The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule
- President Donald Trump, who had threatened ‘very strong action’ if Iran executed protesters, said Tehran’s leaders had called off mass hangings
DUBAI: More than 3,000 people have died in Iran’s nationwide protests, rights activists said on Saturday, while a “very slight rise” in Internet activity was reported in the country after an eight-day blackout.
The US-based HRANA group said it had verified 3,090 deaths, including 2,885 protesters, after residents said the crackdown appeared to have broadly quelled protests for now and state media reported more arrests.
The capital Tehran has been comparatively quiet for four days, said several residents reached by Reuters. Drones were flying over the city, but there were no signs of major protests on Thursday or Friday, said the residents, who asked not to be identified for their safety.
A resident of a northern city on the Caspian Sea said the streets there also appeared calm.
The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule in the Islamic Republic, culminating in mass violence late last week. According to opposition groups and an Iranian official, more than 2,000 people were killed in the worst domestic unrest since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“Metrics show a very slight rise in Internet connectivity in #Iran this morning” after 200 hours of shutdown, the Internet monitoring group NetBlocks posted on X. Connectivity remained around 2 percent of ordinary levels, it said.
A few Iranians overseas said on social media that they had been able to message users living inside Iran early on Saturday.
US President Donald Trump, who had threatened “very strong action” if Iran executed protesters, said Tehran’s leaders had called off mass hangings.
“I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been canceled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!” he posted on social media.
Iran had not announced plans for such executions or said it had canceled them.
Indian students and pilgrims returning from Iran said they were largely confined to their accommodations while in the country, unable to communicate with their families back home.
“We only heard stories of violent protests, and one man jumped in front of our car holding a burning baton, shouting something in the local language, with anger visible in his eyes,” said Z Syeda, a third-year medical student at a university in Tehran.
India’s External Affairs Ministry said on Friday that commercial flights were available and that New Delhi would take steps to secure the safety and welfare of Indian nationals.
