© KEYSTONE/EPA SYRIAN MILITARY MEDIA/SYRIAN MILITARY MEDIA HANDOUT
At least six Syrian pro-regime fighters were killed by Israeli strikes near Damascus overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). This is the fourth such attack this month.
The victims are “two Syrian soldiers and four fighters from Iran-backed militias, whose nationalities remain unknown,” said the NGO, which claims to have a vast network of sources in Syria.
The Israeli army “targeted (military) positions and an arms depot” of Iran-backed groups near Damascus International Airport, the OSDH said. Several weapons caches were destroyed.
The anti-aircraft defenses of the Syrian regime, south of Damascus, were also targeted, continues the Observatory, reporting “the interception of Israeli missiles”.
Earlier, Syria’s official SANA news agency reported the death toll at three in an “air assault with multiple missiles” carried out by the “Israeli enemy” from north of Lake Tiberias, targeting positions around Damascus around 01:10 (00:10 Swiss). Most of the missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defenses, the agency said.
Intensification of strikes
This is the fourth time since the beginning of the month that Israel has bombed Syria. The Jewish state had carried out strikes on Wednesday on the town of Quneïtra, near the Golan Heights, on February 17 once morest a military post of the regime in the city of Zakiya, south of Damascus, and on February 9 once morest anti-aircraft batteries in response to a missile launch from Syria.
Since the beginning of the war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syrian territory, targeting positions of regime soldiers as well as Iranian forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which fight alongside the regime in Damascus.
Israel has recently stepped up the frequency of its strikes. The OSDH estimates that in 2021, around thirty Israeli strikes killed 125 fighters from government forces and five civilians.