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Two Syrian civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, state media reported, the fourth such attack on government-controlled areas of the war-torn country in less than a week.
“At 00:15 (local time), the Israeli enemy carried out an air strike that killed two civilians,” the state-run SANA news agency said, citing a military source.
The strike came from “the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the vicinity of Damascus and the southern region,” it said, adding that air defense intercepted “most” of the missiles.
During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes into Syrian territory, targeting mainly Iranian-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, as well as Syrian army positions.
‘SANA’ had previously reported “an explosion heard in the surroundings of Damascus”.
Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, added that “an unknown number of Iranian-backed fighters were also killed” in the attack.
Israel fired “barrages of missiles at military zones controlled by Iranian-backed groups and the regime’s air defense,” the British-based observatory, with a wide range of sources inside Syria, said.
An Israeli missile targeted a radar in the Sweida countryside, while another hit a glass factory in the Al-Kiswah area of the Damascus countryside, killing the two civilians, it said.
Earlier, the observatory had claimed that the missiles also hit the vicinity of the Damascus international airport and an Iranian compound near the Sayyida Zeinab area, and that Syrian air defense intercepted at least two missiles.
On Sunday, two Iran-affiliated fighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike on targets in Syria, according to the monitor, and SANA reported that five Syrian soldiers were wounded.
Israel attacked near the western city of Homs early Sunday, after attacking the Syrian capital on Thursday and early Friday.
On Sunday, a car bomb attack rocked Damascus, with no victims reported or responsibility claimed.
Although Israel rarely comments on its attacks in Syria, it has repeatedly said it will not allow its arch-enemy Iran to expand its footprint in the war-torn country.
The Syrian war erupted in 2011 with the brutal crackdown on peaceful anti-government protests, escalating into a deadly armed conflict that engulfed foreign powers and global jihadists.
More than half a million people have been killed and around half of Syria’s pre-war population has been forced to flee their homes.
*With AFP; adapted from its original in English
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