ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A suspected Israeli airstrike near Syria’s capital city of Damascus on Thursday night injured eight soldiers, state media reported.
“Around 10:05 pm tonight, the Israeli enemy launched an airstrike from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, targeting a site in the vicinity of Damascus,” Syrian state media (SANA) reported citing a military source.
Eight soldiers were injured and there was some material damage, according to SANA.
The target of the airstrike was a Syrian intelligence training center near the town of Najha on the outskirts of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor. The site has been used by Lebanese Hezbollah since 2014, which converted it into a prison and a base.
The Israeli Defense Forces have not commented on the attack.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout the country’s 13-year civil war, often claiming to strike pro-Iran militias such as Hezbollah, which supports the Syrian army.
Thursday’s attack is the first on Iran-backed groups since a deadly strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1, which Tehran blamed on Israel.
On April 19, a suspected Israeli airstrike targeted Syrian army positions in the southern province of Daraa, resulting in material damage.
Israel has intensified its strikes on Syria since October 7. It has attacked Syrian territory at least 36 times since the start of the year, killing at least 129 people and wounding over 53 others, according to SOHR.
While it rarely comments on strikes attributed to it in Syria, Israel has repeatedly warned that it will not tolerate its arch-rival Iran gaining a foothold there.
