ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Israeli airstrikes targeted several military sites belonging to the Syrian regime on Wednesday, killing eight Syrian army soldiers, state media reported.
Syrian state media (SANA) cited a military source saying that around 1:45 am on Wednesday Israel launched several airstrikes on military sites in the Daraa countryside in southwestern Syria, from the direction of the Golan Heights.
The airstrikes killed eight soldiers and injured seven others as well as inflicting material damage, according to SANA.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said on X, formerly Twitter, that Israeli “fighter jets struck military infrastructure and mortar launchers belonging to the Syrian Army,” adding that the attacks were carried out in response to rockets launched towards Israel from Syria on Tuesday.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the attack struck Abden military base, near the Golan Heights.
Israel captured Syria’s Golan Heights territory in 1967 during the Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981. The United Nations does not recognize the annexation of the area.
The occupied Golan Heights have often been used by Israel as a launching base for airstrikes against Syria. Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout its 12-year civil war, often claiming to strike pro-Iran militias, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which supports the Syrian army.
The recent escalation of tensions between Tel Aviv and Damascus comes as Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militants fight an all-out war, with Syria’s defense ministry last week blasting Israel for “its continuing crimes against the Palestinian people and the massacres it commits against innocent civilians, including women and children,” and accusing it of supporting ‘terrorism’ in Syria.”
On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes targeted Syria’s main airports of Damascus and Aleppo, knocking them out of service. Similar airstrikes targeted only Aleppo airport on October 15 and both airports on October 17.
According to SOHR data, Israel has launched 40 attacks on Syria in 2023, destroying over 85 targets including buildings, weapons, ammunition warehouses, headquarters, centers, and vehicles. The attacks killed 72 combatants and injured 93 others.
