Israeli airstrikes kill five in Damascus, claims Syrian state news
A residential area in Syria’s capital of Damascus was hit in Israeli airstrikes, according to country’s state media, killing at least five people and wounding 15.
Explosions were heard over a central area of the city at around 12.30am, and state news agncy SANA reported that Syrian air defences were “confronting hostile targets in the sky around Damascus.”
Citing a military source, the report claims that five people had been killed, among them a soldier, and 15 civilians wounded, along with “destruction of a number of residential buildings.”
There was no immediate statement from Israel on the attack and a spokesperson for the Israeli military declined to comment.
Samer Abdo, an engineer living in an apartment building that was struck in Kafr Sousa on an upscale residential street, was picking through shattered glass and broken wood in his apartment on Sunday morning.
He said that his family had woken up in terror to the building shaking.
“We thought at first that it was an earthquake like the one that happened two weeks ago,” he said.
Mohamad Dulo, another resident of the neighbourhood, said: “All the windows fell into the street, and people ran down to the streets as well."
Mr Dulo said he did not understand why the area was targeted. “It's a residential area,” he said. “There is nothing (military) here.”
Director General of Antiquities and Museums Mohamad Awad said that the damaged buildings around the Damascus Citadel were arts and heritage institutes, as well as the offices for managing the citadel.
Israeli airstrikes frequently target sites in the vicinity of Damascus, with the latest strikes the first since a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on February 6.
The last reported attack on Damascus was on January 2, when the Syrian army claimed Israel’s military fired missiles toward the international airport of the capital, putting it out of service. killing two soldiers and wounding two others.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.
Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The Israeli strikes come amid a wider shadow war between Israel and Iran.
The attacks on airports in Damascus and Aleppo were over fears they were being used to funnel Iranian weaponry into the country.
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