Israeli missiles strike near Damascus airport

DAMASCUS: Two Israeli missiles struck targets near Damascus airport early yesterday, Syrian state media said, while a monitoring group said they hit arms depots for Hezbollah.

In a report in the early hours of yesterday, Syria’sstatenewsagency Sana said “two Israeli missiles came down near Damascus international airport”.

The head of monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, also told AFP that “the Israeli missiles hit arms depots for Hezbollah near the airport”.

He said the air strike took place at 1am local time “without causing huge explosions” even though they hit the weapons stores.

The observatory added that the Syrian air defence “failed to intercept the missiles”.

When contacted by AFP, a spokesman for the Israeli army said: “We do not comment on foreign reports.”

Israel has warned of a growing Iranian military presence in neighbouring Syria, which it sees as a threat to its safety.

Its military has been carrying out strikes on Iranian and Iran- affiliated targets in Syria, with a US official saying it was Israeli forces that carried out a deadly strike against an Iraqi paramilitary base in eastern Syria on June 17.

Israeli seized a large swathe of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six- Day War and later annexed it, in a move never recognised by the international community.

— AFP photo File photo shows smoke rising above opposition held areas of Daraa during airstrikes by Syrian regime forces. Russian-backed regime forces have for weeks been preparing an offensive to retake Syria’s south, a strategic zone that borders both Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.