Israeli Air Force Strikes Damascus

Jerusalem, 11 December, 2023 (TPS) -- Israel Air Force fighter jets struck several targets in and around Damascus on Sunday night, causing some material damage.

“Nearly at 23:05 p.m. on Sunday, the Israeli enemy carried out an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the vicinity of Damascus,” the state-run SANA news agency reported, citing a military source.

The report said Syrian air defenses “repelled” the attack by downing Israeli missiles, a common claim dismissed by most analysts.

The strikes came one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a tense telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Israel has struck hundreds of targets in Syria in recent years as part of an effort to prevent Iranian military entrenchment in the country. Jerusalem rarely acknowledges these incidents. Israel and Russia have security coordination to avoid firing on each other, but that arrangement has been strained by the war in Ukraine.

On Friday, four people were reportedly killed by an alleged Israeli drone strike on a vehicle in Syria near the shared border.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah said three of its operatives were killed, including Hassan Ali Dakdouk, the son of Ali Mussa Dakdouk, who oversees the terrorist group’s operations in southern Syria.

Israel Air Force fighter jets attacked targets south of Damascus in response to rocket fire launched from Syria on Thursday.

The Sham FM radio station, which supports the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, said that explosions were heard in the “southwestern Damascus countryside” as well as in the area of Quneitra, near the border with the Jewish state.

Earlier on Thursday, air-raid sirens warned of incoming rockets in the Israeli part of the Golan Heights. Army Radio reported that several own projectiles hit an open area in the Druze town of Buq’ata.

Israeli airstrikes near Damascus killed two officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Dec. 1.