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A large blast rocked a highly-secure neighborhood in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on January 20, with state media reporting an “Israeli aggression.”
A video posted to social media a few minutes after the blast showed a column of smoke rising from the al-Mazzeh Western Villas, an upscale neighborhood in western Damascus with tight security measures where many senior Syrian officials reside and several diplomatic missions are located.
Two videos that surfaced online later revealed that the blast had destroyed two multi storey residential buildings and damaged several nearby cars.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said that an “Israeli aggression” targeted a residential building, without elaborating.
General Director of Al-Mouwasat Hospital in Damascus, Dr. Essam Al-Amin, told Al Madian FM that a dead body and three wounded people were transported to the hospital from the scene of the blast. Other news sources alleged that as many as five were killed.
The timing and location of the blast led to speculations that it was an Israeli assassination. The Hamas Movement, who have been battling Israel in the Gaza Strip for more than three months, quickly denied that any of its officials were targeted in Damascus.
However, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which are closer to Syria, are yet to comment on the blast.
Israel has significantly escalated its attacks on Syria since the outbreak of the war with Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions in Gaza.
Several of the recent Israeli attacks on Syria targeted commanders of the so-called Axis of Resistance, which is led by Iran.
On December 25, a strike blamed on Israel hit the home of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps senior commander Brigade General Seyed Razi Mousavi in the town of Set Zaynab to the south of Damascus, killing him on the spot. Later on January 8, Israel said that it has assassinated a senior commander of Hamas, Hassan Akasha, in the town of Beit Jinn in the southern Syrian governorate of al-Qunitra.
