Israel kills 6 Syrian soldiers in airstrike near Damascus

Israel killed six Syrian soldiers on Wednesday in a drone strike that targeted the city of el-Kiswah in the Damascus countryside, southern Syria, in what Damascus described as continued violations against the country.

The Syrian state-run channel Al-Ekhbariya said: “Six martyrs from the Syrian Arab Army were killed as a result of Israeli occupation drone strikes today near the city of el-Kiswah in the Damascus countryside.”

This escalation followed an Israeli strike earlier on Tuesday that killed one person when a house was targeted in the village of Taranga in northern Quneitra countryside, according to the Syrian news agency SANA.

Al-Ekhbariya also reported that at dawn on Tuesday, Israeli forces advanced into the town of el-Sweiseh in southern Quneitra countryside and detained a young man, while residents confronted the troops.

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For the past seven months, Israeli forces have held Mount Hermon and a 15-kilometre-wide security strip in parts of southern Syria.

Syria has repeatedly condemned Israel’s ongoing violations of its sovereignty and stressed its commitment to the disengagement agreement signed between the two sides in 1974.

The report noted that although the new Syrian administration, in place since late December 2024, has posed no threat to Tel Aviv, Israeli forces have repeatedly entered Syrian territory and carried out air raids that killed civilians and destroyed Syrian army sites, vehicles, weapons, and ammunition.

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