Syrian troops respond to renewed rebel attack in Damascus

JERUSALEM — Israel has concluded that Hezbollah’s top military commander was killed in Syria last year by rivals within the Shiite militant group, Israel’s military chief said Tuesday.

The announcement was the latest sign of an escalating feud between Israel and Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group sworn to Israel’s destruction.

Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, told an academic conference on Tuesday that the death of Mustafa Badreddine last May illustrated “the depth of the internal crisis within Hezbollah.” behind rebel lines, according to footage released by opposition factions, and fighters scrambled between rubble and burning buses to take up positions. Smoke clouded the skies.

Syrian state media said 15 people were wounded in rebel shelling across the capital. State-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV said government forces had killed and wounded several “terrorists” and arrested several more.

A broad federation of insurgent factions renewed their assault on Damascus on Tuesday after their first attack launched Sunday stalled. That attack marked the most serious infiltration of the capital, seat of President Bashar Assad’s power, in years.

Assad’s armed opponents are divided over strategy, with the al-Qaida-affiliated groups preaching a confrontational, military approach against the government, and others agreeing to political discussions.

But the government’s own intransigence — ratcheting up military pressure against its opponents across the country despite peace talks — appears to have brought the factions closer together.