Four Syrian soldiers were killed Monday, August 7 at dawn, during Israeli strikes near Damascus.
“At 2:20 a.m. [1 h 20, heure de Paris]the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the occupied Golan, targeting areas in the outskirts of Damascus”said the state agency Sana, citing a military source.
Four soldiers were also injured, and the attack caused material damage, Sana said, adding that the Syrian air defense intercepted some of the missiles. An Agence France-Presse correspondent in Damascus said he heard several explosions during the night.
Hundreds of strikes since the start of the war in 2011
Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against Syrian regime positions as well as Iranian and Hezbollah forces, allies of Damascus and sworn enemies of Israel.
From the start of the conflict, which killed more than 500,000 people, Tehran sent soldiers presented as advisers, in support of the Syrian army. Several of them were killed in Israeli strikes. The Israeli state rarely comments on these strikes on a case-by-case basis, but says it wants to prevent Iran from establishing itself on its doorstep.
On July 19, three pro-regime fighters were killed and four injured in Israeli night strikes against positions of the army and pro-Iranian groups near Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). ), a UK-based organization. Damascus, which for its part reported two injuries, called on the United Nations and the Security Council to “take immediate action” For “put an end to these criminal policies of Israel”.
In early July, according to the OSDH, Israel had also targeted Hezbollah sites and ammunition depots in the northeastern outskirts of Homs (center), killing a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and injuring four others. Israel had also targeted an air defense base in the province of Tartous, on the coast, according to the same source.