Israel in first Syria strikes since air defense upgrade, says monitor
Israel struck several positions south of Damascus, a war monitor said Friday, in the first strikes since Syrian air defenses were upgraded following the accidental downing of a Russian plane in September.
Damascus claimed its air defense systems shot down all “hostile targets” late Thursday. Israel did not confirm carrying out raids but denied any losses.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the strikes hit two positions in the south of Damascus province, including an area believed to be an Iranian weapons depot near the capital.
“Israeli forces bombarded for an hour,” observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Two missiles hit “weapons depots belonging to the Lebanese Hezbol- lah (militant group) as well as Iranian forces” in Kisweh.
Another missile hit the area of Harfa, where there is a Syrian military base, the Britain-based monitor said.
In Kisweh, “the depots that were targeted are used to temporarily store rockets until they are taken somewhere else,” Abdel Rahman said.
“It appears the Israelis had intelligence that weapons had arrived there recently,” he added.
The observatory also said airstrikes by the US-led coalition against Daesh in eastern Syria this week killed dozens of people in the terrorist group’s last major foothold.
Syrian regime media also reported dozens of deaths this week.
The observatory said strikes beginning overnight on Wednesday in and around Al-Shafa in the Deir Ezzor countryside had targeted a hospital, prison and houses used by militants in their pocket on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river near the Iraqi border.