An Israeli F-16 fighter jet en route to an exercise in Germany in an undated photograph. (Israel Defense Forces)
Early on March 30, a series of Israeli airstrikes hit the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
A military source told the state-run agency that Israeli warplanes launched several missiles at the capital from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights. Syrian air defenses confronted the missiles and shot down some of them, the source said, adding that airstrikes wounded two soldiers and caused some material losses.
Video footage that surfaced online after the attack showed smoke rising from the al-Midan and adjacent Kafar Sousah neighborhoods of Damascus.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the target of the attack was positions of Iranian-backed forces, while an opposition source with contacts on the ground told the Reuters news agency the airstrikes hit a car carrying pro-Iran personnel near a Syrian security building in Kafar Sousah.
This was the fourth confirmed attack by Israel against Syria this month. On March 7, a series of strikes hit Aleppo International Airport in the northern region, placing it out of service for three days. On March 12, an aerial attack targeted an air defense base and a military research center in the western governorates of Tartus and Hama. Later on March 22, the airport in Aleppo and an adjacent air base were hit by several airstrikes.
Israel is believed to have carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations. Tel Aviv says, however, that it is making efforts to prevent Iranian-backed forces, namely Lebanon’s Hezbollah, from entrenching themselves in the war-torn country.
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