Several Iranian advisers were killed in the attack, SANA news agency said
People and security forces gather in front of a building destroyed in a reported Israeli strike in Damascus. Louai Beshara © AFP / Louai Beshara
An Israeli airstrike has hit a residential building in the Syrian capital, killing several people, the state-run SANA news agency has reported.
The “Israeli aggression” took place in the Mezzeh neighborhood of southwest Damascus on Saturday morning, the agency said.
According to SANA, several people, including a “number of Iranian advisers,” died in the bombing raid.
Unverified videos on social media showed a major explosion and a building in the capital being reduced to rubble.
A security source told Reuters news agency that the Israeli attack was aimed at members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and that several were killed and wounded.
Syrian political analyst Taleb Ibrahim, who spoke to RT from Damascus, said that “dozens of civilian were buried [in the debris], some of the Iranian military advisers were assassinated by this airstrike.”
According to Ibrahim, the attack was carried out by IDF jets from the airspace of the Golan Heights, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967. A total of four missiles were fired at the Syrian capital, he added.
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Speaking about the presence of advisers from Tehran in Damascus, the analyst insisted that “Syria as a state has a right to cooperate with Iran, Russia, China to bolster its military capabilities.”
Israel has repeatedly struck Syrian territory since the outbreak of civil war in the country in 2011. Several such incidents have occurred since October 7, when the IDF launched its military operation in Gaza in response to a deadly incursion into Israel by the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
“Israel said they’re attacking Iranian forces inside Syria, and this is a very very big lie. Actually, they want to weaken the Syrian military capabilities,” Ibrahim claimed.
The analyst also warned that with its strikes on neighboring countries, including Syria and Lebanon, Israel might “open the gates of hell” and provoke “a big war” in the region.
READ MORE: UN condemns Israeli killings in Lebanon and Syria
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeled Iran “the head of the octopus,” which has its “tentacles” behind Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and other groups. “Who says we are not attacking Iran, we are attacking,” Netanyahu insisted when asked by reporters about why Israel hasn’t been striking Iranian territory directly.
