Syrian state media says soldier killed in Israeli strike on Damascus

A Syrian soldier was killed Sunday and three others wounded in Israeli strikes on several positions in and around Damascus, Syrian state media said.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, said it had targeted a Syrian military command centre as well as targets and infrastructure belonging to the Syrian army and air defence in response to two drones launched towards Israel from Syrian territory.

The statement was a rare acknowledgement by the Israeli military of action in Syria, where it has launched hundreds of strikes since the country’s civil war erupted in 2011, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters.

“A soldier was killed and three others injured following an aerial aggression launched by the Israeli enemy after midnight” on Sunday, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported.

The strike “was launched from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights”, which Israel seized in 1967, and targeted “several military positions in the southern region and a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district of Damascus”, it added.

SANA said that aerial defence systems had intercepted and downed a number of missiles “despite their intensity”.

The news agency published a photo showing a fire in what appeared to be a crater caused by the blast.

An AFP journalist visiting the scene said the strike caused a crater about 30 metres (nearly 100 feet) long and 10 metres wide.

The facade of an eight-storey building was damaged, with its windows shattered, while around 30 cars were left charred or damaged around the impact site.

The vicinity was cordoned off by police, while firefighters attempted to extinguish the fire in the area.

‘Unpredictable consequences’

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights later gave a toll of two personnel from Syria’s air defence forces dead in Israeli strikes targeting a building in Kafr Sousa and a military headquarters south of Damascus.

The war monitor had earlier said one pro-government fighter was killed and six others were wounded in the strikes.

Local radio station Sham FM had reported “the explosion of a munitions depot following an Israeli attack that targeted a position near the capital”.

“The blasts were very strong and came in succession,” a resident of the eastern Damascus neighbourhood of Mazzeh told AFP, adding that this was followed by “the strong odour of gunpowder”.

The Israeli army meanwhile said that two drones launched “from Syrian territory… were successfully intercepted” on Saturday.

In response, the military said it struck overnight “a Syrian military command centre and infrastructure sites. Additionally, terror targets used by the Syrian military’s Aerial Defence Unit were struck.”

Syria’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes in a statement carried by SANA, and warned that Israeli attacks in Syria and other countries in the region risked leading to “a dangerous escalation” with “dire, unpredictable consequences”.

Israel’s strikes on Syria had intensified after Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip, then eased after an April 1 strike blamed on Israel hit the Iranian consular building in Damascus.

Israel has repeatedly said it will not allow arch-foe Iran to expand its foothold in Syria.

The attack came as Syria prepares to hold parliamentary elections on Monday, in a vote expected to return power to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling Baath party.

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