ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two Syrians allegedly affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group were killed on Wednesday when Israeli airstrikes targeted their positions in the outskirts of the capital Damascus, a war monitor reported. “Two Syrian nationals, working with the Lebanese Hezbollah, were killed as a result of Israeli airstrikes on a Lebanese Hezbollah farm between the Sayyida Zaynab and al-Bahdaliyah area in Damascus countryside,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based war monitor. In another instance, the monitor said that four explosions occurred in the same area following another round of Israeli bombardments, resulting in the “explosion of an electric generator and diesel barrels located inside the farm.” On Wednesday, SOHR reported that Syria’s two main airports in Damascus and Aleppo are still shut after Israeli strikes targeted them over a month ago – the longest they have been out of service since the onset of the Syrian civil war. 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 group which supports the Syrian army. While it rarely comments on strikes attributed to it in Syria, Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate its arch-rival Iran to gain a foothold there. There have been 54 Israeli strikes on Syrian territory since the beginning of the year, killing 98 soldiers and militiamen and wounding 117 others, according to SOHR. The strikes have resulted in the destruction of around 110 targets.
