Israel strikes targets in Damascus

Israeli jets struck targets in Damascus just before midnight on Sunday, Syrian state-run media reported.

“At around 23:45 p.m., the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial act of aggression with missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan," according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.

The strikes caused damage but no injuries, the report stated, citing a Syrian military source.The airstrikes were the first in Syria attributed to Israel since the targeting on May 2 of Aleppo International Airport. SANA at the time reported that the strikes caused heavy damage and shut down the airport.

In March, Reuters reported strikes against an Iranian arms shipment hours after it was delivered to Aleppo airport via an Iranian plane. Earlier that month, strikes hit an underground Iranian arms depot storing guided missile systems.

In April, three people were wounded by alleged Israeli missile strikes in Syria’s northwestern Homs Province. According to Israeli media reports, the attack targeted weapons depots and vehicles used to transport armaments to Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Also last month, the IDF twice shelled Hezbollah assets on the Syrian-held part of the Golan Heights.

On both occasions, the military thereafter dropped leaflets in the targeted areas warning Syrian soldiers against cooperating with Lebanon-based terror groups. While the Israel Defense Forces rarely comment on specific operations, it has conducted hundreds of sorties over the past decade with a view to preventing Iran and its proxies from establishing a permanent military footprint in Syria.