THE death toll in Israeli airstrikes in Syria has risen to 52, including 38 government soldiers and seven members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. This was said by war observers on Saturday (30/3).
The attack on Friday (29/3) sparked fears of a wider regional conflict. They targeted a rocket depot belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah near Aleppo airport in northern Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
This is the latest deadly attack on Iran-backed forces in Syria. Hezbollah has supported the government in its fight against its opponents since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011.
Israeli attacks on targets in Syria have increased since Israel’s war against the Hezbollah-allied Hamas group in the Gaza Strip broke out on October 7. Israeli strikes also frequently target Hezbollah in Lebanon in retaliation for cross-border fire.
Friday’s attacks killed 38 Syrian soldiers, 7 Hezbollah members and 7 Syrian pro-Iran fighters, the Observatory said, up from a total of 44 troops according to previous data.
The number of Syrian soldiers killed was the highest in an Israeli attack since the outbreak of war with Hamas, said the war monitor, which relies on a network of sources in Syria. Israel rarely comments on individual attacks. Israel neither confirmed nor denied the attacks in Syria.
Also read: Targeting Hezbollah, Israel Launches Air Strikes in Syria
But the Israeli military said it killed the deputy head of Hezbollah’s rocket unit in Lebanon, Ali Naim, whose death was confirmed by the Iran-backed group. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on social media that he was visiting northern Israel on Friday to closely examine other successful strikes like those carried out this morning in Lebanon and Syria.
The Israeli army will continue its operations against Hezbollah everywhere, he said, adding, “We will make them pay the price for every attack carried out from Lebanon.”
Hezbollah, which has a powerful arsenal of rockets and missiles, has exchanged almost daily fire with the Israeli military since an unprecedented Hamas attack in October in southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip. “Syria and Lebanon have become broad battlegrounds from Israel’s perspective,” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Military Analysis of the Near East and Gulf, told AFP. (Z-2)
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