Smoke billows above buildings after an Israeli strike on the outskirts of Damascus on Nov. 22, 2023. (Credit: AFP/file photo)
Israel launched strikes near Damascus Sunday that injured two civilians, Syria's Defense Ministry said, the latest in a slew of deadly Israeli attacks on Syria this week.
It came two days after a war monitor reported Israeli strikes that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and allied fighters, fueling new concerns of a wider conflagration,
Such strikes have increased after Israel's war with Palestinian militant group Hamas, an ally of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah group, began on Oct. 7.
"The Israeli enemy launched air strikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of sites near Damascus and injuring two civilians," Syria's Defense Ministry said.
Earlier, state media reported that "air defence systems intercepted enemy targets in the Damascus area."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israel targeted "the area of the scientific research centre in Jamraya, Damascus, setting fire to the site," referring to a Syrian government facility.
The latest incident comes after the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of source in Syria, said Israeli airstrikes on Friday killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, said the monitor.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes targeting pro-Iran groups fighting alongside the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in the country's 13-year civil war.
Friday's attack targeted "a rocket depot belonging to Lebanon's Hezbollah" near the Aleppo airport in northern Syria, according to the Observatory.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army across the country's southern border since October.
"Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective," Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told AFP following Friday's strikes.
Syria's war began after the government repressed peaceful protests in 2011 and escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in jihadists and foreign armies.
The war has killed more than 507,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry.
Israel launched strikes near Damascus Sunday that injured two civilians, Syria's Defense Ministry said, the latest in a slew of deadly Israeli attacks on Syria this week.
It came two days after a war monitor reported Israeli strikes that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and allied fighters, fueling new concerns of a wider conflagration,
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