Israel strike kills 15 in Damascus amid escalation in attacks on Syria and Lebanon

Fifteen people were killed in Syrian capital hours after strikes on Iranian zone of control along border

Security officers and rescuers gather at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus on Thursday. AP Photo

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Israeli air strikes killed 15 people in Damascus on Thursday, Syrian state media said, amid an escalation in attacks in Syria and Lebanon this week.

The air strikes on the western districts of Mazzeh and Qudsaya came as Ali Larijani, senior adviser Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was due to arrive in the Syrian capital, state media said. Women and children were among those killed in the attacks, which destroyed “a number of residential buildings”, according to residents.

The Israeli military said it targeted “several military buildings and headquarters” of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the two most powerful militant groups in Gaza along with fellow Iran-backed group Hamas.

While Israeli strikes on Syria predate the war in Gaza, they have significantly increased since the start of the Gaza war in October last year and an all-out war in Lebanon this September against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

The attack on Damascus followed Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital Beirut for a third consecutive day, hitting locations in the southern suburbs early in the morning after a night of heavy bombardment. One of the strikes hit a building near the international airport as a plane was taking off.

In the Lebanese city of Baalbek, in the Bekaa Valley, at least nine people were killed and five injured when Israel bombed a two-storey building on Thursday afternoon. Vast swathes of the historic city have been reduced to rubble since Israel unleashed a bombing campaign on Baalbek more than two weeks ago.

Five people were killed in Israeli air strikes on the towns of Bazourieh and Jumayjimah in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency NNA.

Israeli bombardment also destroyed infrastructure overnight in the area of Qusayr on the Syria-Lebanon border, according to local media and UK-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Sana reported “significant damage” to the area.

The strikes hit bridges on the Orontes River and border roads near Qusayr, which was bombed by Israel last week. The SOHR said last week's strikes targeted bridges used as smuggling routes into Lebanon.

The escalation of Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Syria is clearly “linked to four main factors”, a source close to Hezbollah and Damascus told The National.

One is “an apparent Israeli effort to force Syria and Lebanon to involve Russia in a future settlement for the war in Lebanon, through Russia intensifying its role in controlling the Syrian borders and preventing the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah,” the source said.

They were also a response to Hezbollah’s secretary general Sheikh Naim Qassem's rejection of any ceasefire settlement that “imposes conditions compromising Lebanese sovereignty”, they said.

Another factor was “Israel's success in destroying a series of front-line villages along the border, but failure to exert sufficient pressure on Lebanon to force acceptance of the Israeli (and US) proposed settlement terms, which include Israel's freedom to respond to any future perceived threats to its security after a ceasefire”.

Hezbollah's escalation of strikes in recent days, including deep inside Israeli territory, striking crucial military and security sites in Tel Aviv and Haifa, will have also spurred the Israeli response, the source said.

Israel's intensified air campaign against Hezbollah in Syria comes after a series of operations that killed many of the group's top echelons, including its former leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as operational commanders on the ground, forcing the group to rely more on Syria to maintain its command structure, security experts say.

Allied Iran-backed militias in Iraq, who are crucial for maintaining its weapons supply from the east, have also come under increased military pressure, after the recent US air raids on areas near the border with Iraq in eastern Syria.

While the Damascus suburb of Mazzeh has been hit previously, Thursday's attack was the first on Qudsaya, residents said.

“This is the first time I’ve seen them [Israel] attack this area, the windows shook, the house was rocking, the explosion is just a few blocks away from here,” said Hisham Al Khatib, 58, told The National. “We sometimes hear sonic booms over here from fighter jets, but we’ve never actually seen this happen here, we don’t really have any Iranians in this area. It’s scary.”

Qudsaya has at least one large complex belonging to the elite Syrian Republican Guard and is a part of the defensive line around the capital.

Mazzeh, situated near the road connecting Damascus to the Lebanese capital Beirut, is where Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and operatives of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have increasingly established themselves in recent years, according to residents.

The attack on Thursday targeted the “Yafa Centre for Palestinian Development” near the Saraya Square which has been the target of increasingly frequent air raids, and levelled several buildings, they said.

Ahmad Mousally, 21, said he saw a building hit by more than one missile.

“This area has become dangerous; Israel seems to love us here in Mazzeh. I saw strikes, red explosions and then the force made me get to my knees. I ran to the scene, there were women and children and the building was collapsed.”

A traditionally upmarket Syrian neighbourhood with cafes, shops, restaurants and embassies, the area has transformed into a ghost town with people avoiding it because of the attacks, he said.

“Usually Mazzeh is one of the busiest areas in the whole of Syria, ministries, embassies and commercial shops, malls; it’s a prime location in Damascus. It’s clear it's on the hit list – even rental prices and house prices have gone down. People are dying here every day because of Israel.”

Israel has also struck key roads used by civilians fleeing to Syria from the violence in Lebanon, particularly in the eastern Bekaa valley, where Syrian refugees have been killed, and key roads to Damascus.

According to Lebanon's Health Ministry, Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,300 people and wounded over 14,000 across Lebanon since last year.