An Israeli air strike in Syria killed 15 people early Sunday and badly damaged a building in a Damascus district that is home to several state security agencies, a war monitoring group said.
Civilians, including two women, were among those killed in โthe deadliest Israeli attack in the Syrian capitalโ so far, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The overnight strike damaged a 10-storey building near an Iranian cultural centre in the capitalโs Kafr Sousa district, which is home to senior state officials and Syrian intelligence headquarters, said the Britain-based Observatory.
It was not immediately clear who was the intended target of the strike which AFP correspondents reported left a large crater in the rubble-strewn street below and blew out windows of nearby buildings.
Other missiles overnight hit a warehouse that belongs to pro-regime Iranian and Hezbollah fighters near Damascus, said the Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.
Syriaโs defence ministry confirmed the Kafr Sousa attack shortly after midnight and gave an initial death toll of five, including one soldier, and 15 wounded civilians, some of whom it said were in critical condition.
โAt 00:22 am, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights targeting several areas in Damascus and its vicinity, including residential neighbourhoods,โ it said.
Syrian defence forces had โshot down several missilesโ, the ministry added in its statement.
An Israeli army spokesperson on Sunday said only that โIsrael does no comment on reports in foreign mediaโ.
More than decade of war
Israel, during more than a decade of war in Syria, has carried out hundreds of air strikes against its neighbour, primarily targeting the countryโs army, Iranian forces and Hezbollah, allies of the Damascus regime.
Israelโs military rarely comments on its operations inside Syria, but regularly asserts that it will not let its arch enemy Iran extend its influence to Israelโs borders.
Late last year, the head of the Israel Defense Forces Operations Directorate, Major General Oded Basiuk, presenting an operational outlook for 2023, said that the army โwill not accept Hezbollah 2.0 in Syriaโ.
In Tehran, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani on Sunday โstrongly condemned the attacks of the Zionist regime against targets in Damascus and its suburbs, including against certain residential buildingsโ.
The raids had left โa number of innocent Syrian citizensโ dead and injured, he said.
The Syrian conflict started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful protests, and escalated to pull in multiple foreign powers and global jihadists.
Nearly half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced around half of the countryโs pre-war population from their homes.
The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad receives military support from Russia as well as from Iran and Tehran-allied armed Shiite groups, including Lebanonโs Hezbollah, which are declared enemies of Israel.
The latest attack comes more than a month after an Israeli missile strike hit Damascus International Airport, killing four people, including two soldiers.
The January 2 strike hit positions of Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups inside the airport and nearby, including a weapons warehouse, the Observatory said at the time.
The Damascus government is currently seeking to recover from the February 6 earthquake, which did not affect the capital but which killed more than 43,000 people across the countryโs north and southern Turkey.
