Air strikes targeting a residential area in and around Damascus, the Syrian capital, have killed several people and damaged residential buildings, Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. believe early on Sunday.
The Syrian state media agency, SANA, and the observatory said Israel carried out the bombing. Israel, which has carried out hundreds of attacks on targets in government-controlled areas of Syria in recent years, did not immediately respond to the allegations.
Reuters, citing witnesses and an official source, said a missile hit a building in an area near a large security complex near Iranian military installations.
Israel has previously admitted to targeting the bases of militant groups allied with Iran, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has provided fighter jets to support the dictatorial president’s army Syria, Bashar al-Assad.
Reports of deaths and injuries in the Kafr Sousa area are varied.
SANA, citing a source in the Damascus police command, said at least five people were killed and 15 others injured after hearing a loud explosion in the capital around 12:30 a.m. local time. It said that Syria’s air defenses were “confronting hostile targets in the sky around Damascus.”
The Observatory, based in the UK, said in a post on Twitter that 15 people were killed “in an Israeli bombing.”
It was the first air strike since a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on February 6, killing more than 40,000 people in total.
Videotapes shared by Syrian journalists and others on social media showed what they described as damage to buildings as a result of the strikes. SANAciting sources, said the strikes had come from the direction of the Golan Heights.
The most recent attack on Damascus is known to have taken place on January 2, according to the AP news agency, when the Syrian Army reported that the Israeli army fired missiles towards the city’s international airport, killing killed two soldiers, wounded two others, and brought the airport out of service.
Hwaida Saad contribution report.
