An Israeli strike on a residential area of Damascus killed at least two people Wednesday, Syrian state media reported, the latest deaths from an escalating Israeli air campaign since the Gaza war erupted in October.
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria since civil war broke out in 2011 but has stepped up its campaign since Hamas’ unprecedented attack from Gaza on October 7.
“The Israeli enemy carried out an air attack with a number of missiles… targeting a residential building in the Kafr Sousa neighbourhood in Damascus,” a statement from a military source carried by state news agency SANA said. “The attack led to the martyrdom of two civilians, wounded others and caused material damage to the building” and surrounding structures, the statement added.
An AFP photographer said the strike hit a nine-story building, with damage centered around the fourth floor. The exterior of the building was partially blackened by the resulting blaze, which firefighters scrambled to put out.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said that “a Syrian civilian” was killed as well as two foreign nationals. The Israeli army told AFP it had no comment. The high-security Kafr Sousa area of the Syrian capital is home to senior security officials, intelligence headquarters, and an Iranian cultural center.
Israel has been accused of intensifying its strikes against Iranian and allied targets in both Syria and Lebanon at the risk of creating a new front in its war against the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria. In December, an air strike blamed on Israel in the Sayyida Zeinab district south of Damascus killed Razi Moussavi, a senior commander of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He was the most senior Quds Force commander to be killed outside Iran in nearly four years.
In January, another strike blamed on Israel on Damascus’s Mazzeh neighborhood killed the Guards’ Syria spy chief and his deputy, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported. The Observatory said 13 people were killed in the strike.
