BEIRUT: Israeli air strikes that targeted a building in an upscale area near the Syrian capital killed three people early on Saturday, a war monitor said.

State media reported that Syrian air defences responded to an Israeli “air attack”.

Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour, mainly targeting Iran-backed forces, including Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions. The strikes have increased since Israel’s aggression Hamas began on Oct 7.

In the latest incident three people were killed, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. He could not immediately confirm whether the dead were fighters.

Rahman added that many other people were injured in the strikes on a neighbourhood hosting “villas for top military and officials.” The war monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, earlier reported the “Israeli attack” on “a residential building west of the Syrian capital Damascus”, with the sound of “violent explosions”.

State news agency SANA cited a military source saying that at around 1:05am, “the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of points in the Damascus countryside”.

Air defences responded to the missiles and “downed some of them”, the statement said, adding that the attack caused “some material losses”.

The strikes came hours after an area near a military airport west of Damascus came under missile attack on Friday, the Observatory said, while the defence ministry said drones had entered Syrian airspace from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Observatory did not say who was behind what it described as a “missile” attack.

“Positions belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other pro-Iran groups are present” in the area, added the Observatory.

A statement from the defence ministry said that at around 2:10pm on Friday, “two drones violated Syrian air space from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan”.

“Air defence systems confronted them and they were shot down west of Damascus,” the statement added, also without specifying who was behind the incident. The Israeli army declined to comment on “reports in the foreign media.”

Syrian air defences shot down Israeli missiles launched at the Damascus countryside in the early hours of Saturday, the Syrian army said, in the second such attack in less than a day.On Friday, Syria said its air defences had downed two drones in the western outskirts of Damascus during an attack also originating from the Golan Heights. However, it refrained from explicitly attributing responsibility to Israel for that incident.

The Israeli military has said it does not comment on reports in foreign media.

Since December, Israeli strikes have killed more than half a dozen Iranian Revolutionary Guards, including a top intelligence general.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2024