An Israeli bombardment against the Syrian capital left at least 15 dead this Sunday and seriously damaged a building in the Damascus neighborhood where Syrian security and intelligence agencies are located, activists reported.
The Syrian opposition NGO Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) specified that the dead included civilians, including two womenand that the bombing was directed at targets of the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah in Damascus.
“Sunday bombing is the deadliest Israeli attack on the Syrian capital”said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the OSDH, a UK-based organization that uses a network of sources inside Syria.
According to the OSDH, “Israeli missiles targeted sites (used by) Iranian militias and Lebanese Hezbollah“.
The attack hit a 10-story building near the Iranian Cultural Center in the Kafr Sousa neighborhood, where some ministries, security agencies and intelligence agencies are based.
Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of bombardments against the neighboring countrydirected especially against Army posts, Iranian militias and Hezbollah, which are allies of the Syrian government.
The Syrian Defense Ministry said that the bombardment was launched from the Golan Heightsthe Syrian plateau occupied by Israel since 1967.
“The Israeli enemy carried out an air assault from the occupied Golan Heights against various areas in and around Damascus, including residential neighborhoods,” the ministry said in a statement.
At the entrance to the attacked building there was a crater and the streets were littered with rubble and the remains of glass from exploded windows, the AFP news agency reported.
The OSDH reported that another missile attack hit a warehouse of Iranian militias and Hezbollah fighters on the outskirts of Damascus.
No comment
Israel does not usually comment on its operations against Syria, but often reiterates that it will not allow Iran to extend its influence as far as Israel’s borders.
The Syrian government of President Bashar al Assad receives military support from Russia, Iran and armed Shiite groups such as Hezbollah, Israel’s sworn enemy.
The inhabitants of Damascus were awakened in the middle of the night by the noise of the loud explosions and by the sirens of the ambulances that were heading to the place, according to AFP.
Images released by the state press showed a building badly damaged by the attack, which crushed the structures on its lower floors.
A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Naser Kanani, said he “strongly condemned the Zionist regime’s attack on targets in Damascus and its periphery, including some residential buildings.”
The bombardment came weeks after an Israeli missile attack struck Damascus International Airport on January 2, killing four people, including two soldiers.
The conflict in Syria began in 2011 with the crackdown on peaceful protests and escalated into a civil war that also involved foreign powers and jihadist groups.
Since the war began, nearly half a million people have died, and more than half the country’s then-population fled their homes.