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18 killed in Israeli strikes on Syria
Syria’s official news agency SANA citing a military source reported that at “around 11:20 pm (2020 GMT) on Sunday, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack” from the direction of northwest Lebanon “targeting a number of military sites in the central region”.
“Our air defense systems confronted the aggression’s missiles and shot down some of them,” a military source told SANA.
This was “one of the most violent Israeli attacks” in Syria in years, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned the raids, accusing Israel of trying to “provoke a further escalation in the region”.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani strongly condemned the “criminal attack by the Zionist regime on Syrian soil”.
He also called on Israel’s backers to “stop supporting and arming it”.
“We do not confirm what was reported by media outlets linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] about an attack on an Iranian center or a center under Iran’s protection,” Kanaani added.
Israel frequently targets military positions inside Syria, especially those of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah which has played a key role in helping the Syrian army in its fight against foreign-backed terrorists.
The Tel Aviv regime rarely comments on its attacks on Syrian territories, which many see as a knee-jerk reaction to the Syrian government’s phenomenal success in confronting and decimating terrorism.
Sunday’s attack comes amid Israel’s bloody onslaught against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The regime has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the coastal territory, including hospitals, residences, and houses of worship, since Palestinian resistance movements launched their surprise attack, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the regime on October 7.
At least 40,972 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed.