The Israeli airforce carried out a strike on Saturday night targeting a residential neighborhood in Damascus, killing several people, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported.
The attack left several people dead, and others wounded, and inflicted heavy damage to a number of residential buildings in the Kafar Sousah neighborhood in the Syrian capital, SANA said.
In a brief statement, the Syrian Health Ministry said three people had been killed and another 15 were wounded. Other unconfirmed media reports put the death toll higher.
Images and video from Kafar Sousah showed heavy damage to several buildings.
SANA said Syrian air defenses were engaging Israeli missiles over Damascus. Syria regularly claims to intercept Israeli missiles, though military analysts doubt such assertions.
Footage from northern Israel appeared to show a Syrian air defense missile exploding over the Golan Heights.
#kafarsoussa B #Damascus Shortly after it was subjected to Israeli aggression and news of the death of two civilians.#Syrian pic.twitter.com/P51CqLbcFa
– Khaled Askif (@khalediskef) February 18, 2023
The state-owned news agency did not immediately provide further details.
Orient News, a Syrian opposition media outlet claimed the strikes targeted Iranian militia officials at the so-called Iranian school in Kafar Sousah.
Separately, the Israeli jets targeted Iranian and Syrian regime military sites near the Damascus International Airport, as well as in Sitt Zaynab and al-Kiswah, a town and a city just south of the capital, Orient News said.
The outlet also claimed the damage to the residential buildings in Kafar Sousah was caused by a misfired Syrian anti-aircraft missile.
???????? Photo | Martyrs and injuries in a Zionist shelling that targeted a house in the Kafr Souseh neighborhood in the vicinity of Damascus.#cubs_revenge Role integration#revolvingdoor#normalization _ is _ a _ crime pic.twitter.com/LIL0JLcZ59
– Al-Aqsa satellite channel (@SerajSat) February 18, 2023
As a rule, Israel’s military does not comment on specific strikes in Syria, but has admitted to conducting hundreds of sorties against Iran-backed groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country over the last decade.
The IDF says it also attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror organization. Additionally, airstrikes attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.
Last week, the Saudi-owned Elaph news site cited an Israeli military official as saying if Iran ships weapons to its regional proxies under the guise of humanitarian aid to Syria following the major earthquake there, the IDF would not hesitate to strike.
The unnamed official said “there is information indicating that Iran will take advantage of the tragic situation in Syria” and ship weapons to Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups in Syria.
Several Iranian cargo planes carrying aid have landed in Syria since a major earthquake struck the country and areas in southeast Turkey on February 6.
In recent years, several airstrikes against alleged Iranian weapon shipments disguised as seemingly harmless products have been attributed to Israel, including one incident last month.
Generally, relatively large weapons are thought to be smuggled via Syria on Iranian cargo airlines, which frequently land at Damascus International and the Tiyas, or T-4, airbase, outside of the central Syrian city of Palmyra.
The weaponry is then believed to be stored in warehouses in the area before being transported to Lebanon.