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30-03-2024
DAMASCUS: An Israeli airstrike on Syria’s Aleppo province has killed at least 36 Syrian soldiers in an area near Hezbollah weapons depots, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said.
“At least 36 soldiers were killed and dozens wounded,” said the group, which has an extensive network of sources in Syria. The targeted area is located near Aleppo’s international airport, it added.
Five Hezbollah members were among those killed in the suspected Israeli strikes, two security sources told Reuters, who put the death toll at 38.
Civilians were among the dead and injured, the Syrian state news agency Sana said.
The Syrian defence ministry said Israeli airstrikes targeted several areas in Aleppo’s countryside at about 1.45am local time but did not specify a death toll. “The aggression resulted in the martyrdom and injury of a number of civilians and military personnel and caused material losses to public and private property,” the statement said.
The Israeli military said it would “not comment on reports in the foreign media”.
Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on targets in Syria since the civil war began there in 2011, as it seeks to cut off Hezbollah supply routes to Lebanon.
The frequency of these strikes has increased since Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza began following the 7 October attacks. The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented attacks that resulted in about 1,200 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians and the taking of about 250 hostages. About 130 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,552 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there.
Israel has exchanged near-daily, cross-border fire with Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon since the Gaza war began, sparking fears of a major regional conflagration.
At least 346 people have been killed in Lebanon mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also including at least 68 civilians in clashes with Israel over the past six months, according to a media tally.
While Iran-backed Hezbollah is Lebanese, it has sent militants into Syria to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, since an uprising against his rule erupted in 2011. The uprising quickly morphed into a civil war, drawing in regional and global players. Hezbollah has continued to operate in the country since.
Israel is carrying out an unprecedented wave of deadly strikes in Syria targeting cargo trucks, infrastructure and people involved in Iran’s weapons lifeline to its proxies in the region, six sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The sources, including a Syrian military intelligence officer and a commander in the regional alliance backing Damascus, said Israel had shifted strategies following the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas fighters into Israeli territory and the ensuing Israeli bombing campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon. (Int’l News Desk)
