Syria Condemns Israeli Missile Attack Near Damascus: Injures Two Soldiers And Causes Damage

Illustration of Israeli airstrikes. (Wikimedia Commons/Natan Flayer)

JAKARTA - The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned Israeli missile attacks that hit near the Damascus capital, injuring two soldiers and causing material damage.

Syrian state television, citing a military source, reported a number of missiles launched from the Golan Heights. It said Syrian air defenses managed to intercept a number of Israeli missiles.

An opposition source with contact on the ground said the attack hit a car carrying pro-Iran personnel near a Syrian security building near Kafr Sousa.

"At around 00:00 p.m., Israeli enemies carried out air aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights targeting several positions around Damascus," the Syrian Ministry of Defense said, citing Al Jazeera.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack in a statement Thursday, saying the attack was "Israel's attempt to avoid internal fragmentation", referring to recent protests, in which hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the judicial reshuffle which was eventually postponed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitoring agency, said it was Israel's fifth attack on Syria this month.

Israeli authorities declined to comment. Meanwhile, Syria did not specify which areas had been attacked.

Israel has been launching attacks on what it calls targets linked to Iran in Syria for the past few years.

That includes two missile attacks this month against Aleppo International Airport, which marks the third attack by Israeli forces against the air transportation facility in the past six months.

Israel rarely recognizes its attacks on sites in Syria, which it claims are aimed at bases of armed groups allied with Iran such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011.

Apart from airports, Israeli warplanes are also targeting other important infrastructure, including the Syrian port. It said such operations were aimed at preventing Iranian weapons from reaching armed groups in Syria backed by Tehran.