Rights group: 11 killed in Israel air strikes on Syria

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday that 11 people, including seven non-Syrians, were killed in Israeli air strikes on military positions in Damascus and its surroundings on Tuesday night.

The observatory said the attack targeted and destroyed weapons and ammunition storage facilities belonging to Iran’s elite Al-Quds Force.

Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Avichay Adraee said on Twitter that Israeli warplanes “raided dozens of military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds Force and the Syrian Army inside Syrian territory, including surface-to-air missiles, headquarters, weapons depots and military bases, in response to yesterday’s rocket fire from Syria towards Israel.”

READ: Syrian exiles have mixed feelings about Israel

The Israeli armed forces confirmed the news saying on Twitter that they had “carried out wide-scale strikes of Iranian Quds Force & Syrian Armed Forces targets in Syria in response to the rockets fired at Israel by an Iranian force in Syria last night.”

Syrian state media said on Wednesday that the Syrian air defence systems have intercepted most of the rockets fired by the Israeli warplanes on Damascus.