Israeli strike on Damascus kills one: State media

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least one Syrian army soldier was killed and three others injured in an Israeli air strike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus early Sunday, state media reported. 

“A soldier was martyred and three others were injured as a result of an Israeli airstrike after midnight today that targeted a number of military sites in the southern region and a residential building in the Kafr Sousa area in Damascus,” Syria’s state-owned SANA news agency said. 

Citing a military source, it said that the strike came from the occupied Golan Heights - previously controlled by Syria but seized by Israel after the Six Day War in 1967 and annexed in 1981, although their annexation has not been recognized by most of the international community. 

“Our air defense systems responded to the enemy’s missiles, despite their intensity, and shot down quite a few of them,” SANA added. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said that at least six regime forces and pro-Iran militants were wounded in the strikes. 

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout its nearly 13-year civil war, often claiming to target pro-Iran militias which support the Syrian army, such as Hezbollah. 

While Israel rarely comments on strikes attributed to it in Syria, Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate its arch-rival Iran gaining a foothold there.

The strikes have increased since October 7, when Palestinian Hamas militants launched an unprecedented, large-scale attack on Israeli territory that prompted significant retaliation.