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1 Syria soldier injured as Israel launches missiles at Damascus

August 22, 2023 at 8:45 am

Members of the Syrian security forces gather in front of a building damaged in a reported Israeli missile strike in Damascus [LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images]

Israel last night launched missiles targeting the vicinity of Syria’s Damascus that left one Syrian soldier injured and “caused some material damage,” Reuters reported the Syrian state news agency SANA saying, citing a military source.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that “strong explosions are heard in the vicinity of Damascus, as a result of Israeli bombing, coinciding with the regime’s air defences attempting to counter the missiles.”

It added that it was “the second attack in less than 15 days,” noting that “Israel targeted military sites, including Iranian militias and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, in the Damascus countryside.”

About an hour after the Israeli bombing, SANA quoted an unnamed military source saying that at “around 23:05 on August 21, 2023, the Israeli enemy carried out a guided missile attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the vicinity of the city of Damascus.”

The source added, in the same statement, that “the attack resulted in the injury of a soldier, and some material losses.”

Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that “the Israeli attack focused on the area near Damascus Airport and the Kiswah area,” adding that they are areas which “Israel has attacked several times in the past.”

Israel has for years been carrying out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran’s influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar Al-Assad in the civil war that started in 2011.

Earlier this year, Israel intensified strikes on Syrian airports and air bases in an apparent effort to disrupt Iran’s increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.