Israel launched an airstrike on Syria’s capital, Damascus, in the early hours of Sunday. A residential building located in the central regions of Damascus was targeted, and the Kafr Sousa neighbourhood woke up to the sounds of missiles. Kafr Sousa is not only one of the epicentres of the recent earthquake in Syria, but it is also close to the guarded complex near Iranian installations.
Heart-wrenching images come out after Israeli attacks
Footage coming out of Syria shows a 10-story building completely damaged by the airstrike, leaving neighbourhoods in close proximity to the complex also affected.
More than a month ago, Israeli soldiers attacked the Damascus Airport killing four people, including two soldiers.
The Syrian news agency SANA reported of Israeli raids in specific sites close to Iranian installations shortly after midnight. The sites were heavily guarded, but forces were able to breach the Kafr Sousa neighbourhood. Kafr Souza is the same neighbourhood where pro-Iran Hezbollah top commander Imad Mughniyeh was killed in a bombing in 2008, making it a heavily monitored and militarised area. The residents of the region have attested to the presence of several Iranian security agencies located near the neighbourhood.
For more than a decade, Israel has been consistently carrying out such attacks against the Iranian-sponsored weapons transfer agencies and personal deployments near the neighbourhoods of Syria. However, Israeli officials have rarely taken responsibility for the attacks.
The attack is seen as an attempt to ratchet up tensions with Iran’s intervention in Syria. Iran has strategically increased its military presence in Syria for the past few years.
According to Western intelligence sources, Iran has expanded its military intervention in Syria and now controls the majority of Syria’s state-controlled areas. It has several militias and local paramilitary groups under its control. In this case, Israel wants to retake Iranian-influenced areas of Syria.
According to an army statement, the raid and airstrike caused damage to several civilian homes and material damage to a lot of neighbourhoods. “The strike on Sunday is the deadliest Israeli attack in the Syrian capital,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based group that has a wide network of sources inside Syria.
