Syria says 15 killed in Israeli strikes on Damascus area
Residential buildings in Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus and Qudsaya area targeted
DAMASCUS: Syria’s defence ministry said twin Israeli air strikes on Thursday killed 15 people in the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus and in the outskirts of the capital.
“The Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan (Heights), targeting residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus and the Qudsaya area in the Damascus countryside, killing 15 people and injuring 16 others,” the ministry said, adding that the toll was preliminary and could rise.
Earlier, the Israeli military said that it carried out air strikes on Wednesday along the border with Syria and Lebanon, with state media in Damascus saying that key infrastructure had been targeted.
A leading monitor said that 15 people had been wounded in the strikes in an area of Syria's Homs region which is a known stronghold of Lebanon's Hezbollah although there was no immediate confirmation from Syrian authorities.
Israel rarely comments on its military operations in Syria but it did confirm the strikes which had been first reported by the Syrian state news agency Sana.
"Earlier today, with the direction of IDF (military) intelligence, the IAF (Israeli airforce) struck smuggling routes between Syria and Lebanon," the army said in a statement.
"These routes coming from the Syrian side of the border into Lebanon are used to smuggle weapons to the Hezbollah terrorist organization."
Bridges targeted
The Sana news agency said that "the Israeli aggression" on the Homs region had been met with a barrage of anti-aircraft fire.
Citing a military source, Sana said that the Israeli planes had targeted bridges along the Orontes river and roads around the Syria-Lebanon border.
The strikes had caused "significant damage", according to the source, putting some of the infrastructure out of action, without giving details.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor also said that Israeli military aircraft had hit Syrian bridges and military checkpoints.
Fifteen members of the Syrian armed forces or allied groups had been wounded in the strikes, said the observatory which has a vast network of contacts throughout Syria.
But since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, it has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian government forces and groups supported by its arch-foe Iran, notably Hezbollah troops that have been deployed to assist Assad's regime.
Israel has carried out frequent raids on highways on the the Lebanese side of the border with Syria to cut off potential weapons supplies since a major escalation of its conflict with Hezbollah in September.