Israeli airstrikes on major Syrian cities

Syrian air defenses were deployed to repel an “Israeli attack” in the Damascus capital, Syria, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported late Tuesday (9/6).

Israeli warplanes fired rockets from ” Lebanese airspace, ” the agency said, adding that no casualties or damage had been reported so far.

For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights spoke of ” powerful explosions in and around Damascus ” in the ” Israeli strikes against military positions ” of the Syrian armed forces.

According to the NGO, the targets were in an area ” near the Damascus International Airport ” and ” a wing of the Syrian air force in the Dumayr area “, about fifty kilometers from Damascus, where ” explosions took place in weapons depots “.

According to the Observatory, ” strikes also took place in the southern part of Homs province “, in central Syria, while ” explosions were heard in the provinces of Hama and Lattakia “, in the northern and northwestern part of the war-torn country.

Fears for the dead

” The strikes resulted in casualties in Homs, where rescue teams were sent to the affected facilities ,” the NGO said, without giving a specific casualty figure.

” These are the first Israeli strikes in Syria since the recent war in the Gaza Strip,” said Rami Abdel, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in an interview with AFP.

An Israeli military spokesman – who rarely acknowledges striking in Syria – told AFP he would not comment on ” information from abroad “.

Since the outbreak of armed conflict in neighboring Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian soil, targeting positions of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Iranian forces and the Lebanese Shiite militia.

The Israeli government has repeatedly said it will not allow Syrian territory to become a bridgehead for forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a sworn enemy of the Jewish state.

The extremely complicated war in Syria, with the involvement of various foreign forces and jihadist organizations, has claimed the lives of almost 500,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.