Five People Were Killed And A Number Of Buildings Damaged By Israeli Missile Attacks On Syria

Illustration of Israeli fighter jets. (Wikimedia Commons/US Air Force/Darrrell I Dean)

JAKARTA - An Israeli rocket attack on Sunday morning hit a building in central Damascus, killing five people and damaging several buildings in the densely populated district, witnesses and officials said.

The attack took place near a security complex where Syria's ally Iran had set up a base, two intelligence sources said.

An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment.

Citing a Syrian military source, state media said Israel had carried out airstrikes targeting several areas of Damascus shortly after midnight, causing five deaths and 15 injuries among civilians.

"It caused damage to several civilian houses and material damage to a number of neighborhoods in and around Damascus," the Syrian military said in a statement.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the attack should be considered a "crime against humanity" considering it came less than two weeks after the February 6 earthquake that killed more than 5,800 people across the country.

It was not immediately clear whether the Israeli attack targeted any specific individuals, but two Western intelligence sources said the target was a logistics center in a building run by Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

Iran and Russia are both helping President Bashar al-Assad, turning the tide of the country's civil war in his favor with military and economic support. Tehran and Moscow condemned the attacks and said they threatened regional stability.

Edmond Ajji of the Syrian antiquities directorate told Reuters the historic fort in the capital suffered some damage in the incident.

However, two Syrian military sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press said anti-aircraft rockets were fired in response to missiles hitting the vicinity of the fort.

Pro-Iran Hezbollah top commander Imad Moughniyeh was killed in 2008 in a bombing in the same neighborhood, Kafr Sousa, a heavily fortified area where residents say several Iranian security agencies are located, including a cultural center.

Although officials rarely admit responsibility for specific operations, Israel has carried out airstrikes against suspected Iranian-sponsored arms shipments and personnel deployments in Syria for nearly a decade.

Israel has also in recent months intensified attacks on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran's increasing use of air supply lines to deliver weapons to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including the Lebanese Hezbollah.

It is known that the attack was part of a low-intensity conflict escalation whose aim was to slow down a growing Iranian stronghold in Syria, Israeli military experts said.

Iran's proxy militias, led by Hezbollah, now hold sway over large areas of eastern, southern, and northwestern Syria and in several suburbs around the capital.

Meanwhile, President Assad has never publicly acknowledged that Iranian forces were operating on his behalf in the Syrian civil war, saying Tehran only has military advisers on the ground.