Israeli warplanes have repeatedly bombed targets inside Syria over the past decade, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once acknowledged that there have been “hundreds” of strikes.
Air defenses around Damascus were activated early on Wednesday, in order to repel another missile attack from Israel, the Syrian news agency SANA has reported.
An “Israeli missile attack” targeted several sites “in the vicinity” of Damascus, SANA said, citing Syrian military sources.
The latest Israeli attack began about 25 minutes after midnight, with missiles coming in from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights.
Syrian air defenses “intercepted the missiles and shot down most of them,” the SANA source said, but the ones that got through “resulted in the injury of two soldiers and some property damage.”
WATCH: Israeli warplanes attacked multiple targets in Damascus, #Syria. pic.twitter.com/0k5cSRD3ao
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) July 19, 2023
According to the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, this is the first Israeli attack on Syria in two weeks.
In early July, Israeli military jets bombed targets in Homs province and struck an air defense battery near the Golan Heights.
The most recent strike on Damascus was just over a month ago, seriously injuring a Syrian soldier outside the capital.
Israeli warplanes have repeatedly bombed targets inside Syria over the past decade, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once acknowledged that there have been “hundreds” of strikes.
On the rare occasions the Israeli army comments on the attacks, they claim to be hitting Iranian and Hezbollah targets in alleged pre-emptive operations against Tehran’s growing influence in Syria.
Damascus has repeatedly protested the raids as a violation of Syrian sovereignty and international law, to little effect.
“Imagine if these ‘hundreds’ of attacks are carried out by Syria against Israel,” Palestinian journalist and editor, Dr. Ramzy Baroud said. “The international crisis that would result from a single Syrian attack against Israel would be unparalleled.”
“Yet Israel is able to attack Syria and kill Syrians without a single word of protest from the international community, and rarely from Syria’s own Arab neighbors,” he added.
“It seems that Tel Aviv has succeeded in normalizing the international crime of aggression to the point that such a crime under international law is now just ordinary news.”
(PC, RT, SANA)
