An Israeli bombardment in Syria left at least 15 dead in the early hours of Sunday and seriously damaged a building in the Damascus neighborhood where the security and intelligence agencies are located, an NGO reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) indicated that the bombardment left 15 dead, including civilians, including two women.
“Sunday’s bombing is the deadliest Israeli attack on the Syrian capital,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of OSDH, an organization based in Britain and using a network of sources inside Syria.
According to the OSDH, “Israeli missiles targeted sites [utilizados por] the Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah”.
Iranian Cultural Center
The attack hit a 10-story building near the Iranian Cultural Center in the Kafr Sousa neighborhood, where some ministries, security agencies and intelligence agencies are based.
Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of bombardments against the neighboring country, targeting especially army posts, Iranian militias and Hezbollah, which are allies of the Syrian regime.
The Syrian Ministry of Defense reported that the bombardment occurred at 10:20 p.m. Spanish time.
“The Israeli enemy carried out an air assault from the occupied Golan Heights against various areas in and around Damascus, including residential neighborhoods,” it said in a statement.
According to an AFP correspondent, at the entrance to the attacked building there was a crater and the streets were littered with rubble and remains of glass from exploded windows.
The OSDH reported that another missile attack hit a warehouse of Iranian militias and Hezbollah fighters on the outskirts of Damascus.
The AFP contacted an Israeli army spokesman but he declined to comment “to foreign media”.
Support from Russia and Iran
Israel does not usually comment on its operations against Syria, but often reiterates that it will not allow Iran to extend its influence as far as Israel’s borders.
Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime receives military support from Russia, Iran and armed Shiite groups such as Hezbollah, Israel’s sworn enemy.
Damascus residents woke up in the middle of the night to the noise of loud explosions and the sirens of ambulances heading to the scene, an AFP correspondent reported.
Images released by the state press showed a building badly damaged by the attack, which crushed the structures on its lower floors.
A spokesman for Iranian diplomacy, Naser Kanani, “strongly condemned the Zionist regime’s attack on targets in Damascus and its periphery, including some residential buildings.”
The bombardment came weeks after an Israeli missile attack struck Damascus International Airport on January 2, killing four people, including two soldiers.
The conflict in Syria began in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on peaceful protests and escalated into a civil war that also involved foreign powers and jihadist groups.
Since the war began, nearly half a million people have died and the conflict forced nearly half of the country’s then-population to flee their homes.
