Israeli warplanes launched fresh airstrikes near Syrian capital Damascus early morning on Thursday, March 30, injuring two Syrian soldiers and causing damage to property, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
Quoting a military source, SANA reported that, at around 1:20 am on Thursday, “the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial act of aggression with a number of missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some sites in the vicinity of Damascus city.”
The SANA report also claimed that Syrian air defense had intercepted some of the missiles.
BREAKING NEWS: Israeli warplanes strike Syria's capital pic.twitter.com/S3lvY19fhG
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) March 29, 2023
This has been the second such Israeli strike in the past week.
Last week, Israeli airstrikes hit Aleppo international airport, impeding ordinary functioning for a time. Aleppo airport is one of the main sources of aid delivery to the earthquake-affected regions of Syria.
Last month’s devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria killed over 50,000 people—including over 6,000 in Syria alone—and caused a massive humanitarian crisis. Syria, which has been dealing with war and its effects for over a decade now, along with severe US and Western sanctions, has struggled to provide adequate relief to people and areas affected by the earthquake.
Israel has attacked Aleppo airport at least three times since the earthquake, forcing the Syrian government to divert relief delivery to Damascus airport, hundreds of miles further away from the affected regions.
Israel has carried out hundreds of such strikes in Syria since 2011, when the war in the country began. It also usually does not acknowledge these strikes, which are illegal as per international law. However, on the rare occasions on which it does acknowledge such strikes, it calls them defensive strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah facilities.
Both the Syrian government and Iran have denied the presence of Iranian forces in Syria. They have called the strikes a way for Israel to aid anti-government forces and prolong the war in Syria, which has already killed thousands and displaced almost half of the country’s total population.
