Late Sunday night, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported that “the army air defenses at 11 PM intercepted hostile missiles coming from the occupied lands,” adding that “one of the hostile targets fell in Aqraba region in the Damascus countryside.”
The Aqraba area was attacked by Israel in August, to thwart the explosive drones attack that Iran had planned to launch from there against Israel.
According to the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, there were no fatalities in the attack in the Damascus area which was attributed to Israel, only damage was caused to the targeted facilities, which were reportedly several military ammunition warehouses in the a Sayyidah Zaynab area in the southern part of Damascus.
The same report said the attack was conducted in two waves, the first involving four missiles launched off the coast of Lebanon toward Syrian airspace; the second wave of missiles coming from the Golan Heights (the “occupied lands” referred to by SANA).
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that there have been at least three explosions in Damascus and its suburbs. In addition, the Observatory reported that the Israeli missiles were aimed at targets belonging to the Syrian regime and Iranian militias in Damascus. No injuries have been reported yet in the attack.
A member of the Assad regime’s allies told Reuters that the attack was carried out using four cruise missiles which were apparently launched from the coastal area, and passed through Lebanon’s aerial territory toward Syria.
תיעוד התקיפה בסוריה הערב כפי שנצפתה מהעיר צידון השוכנת לחופיה הדרומיים של לבנון. pic.twitter.com/UnASFDzZpv
— Omri Haim (@HaimOmri)
Earlier, there were reports of Israeli air sorties in southern Lebanon. Lebanese social networks uploaded recordings of Israeli aircraft launching missiles from Lebanon at their targets in Syria (see above).
SANA also reported Sunday night that a Syrian Arab Army unit took down a drone carrying explosives that had been deployed by terrorists in Tal al-Dara and al-Hamra farm area in the countryside of Salamiyah, locatd 33 km southeast of Hama, and 45 km northeast of Homs. Syrian anti-aircraft systems were used to thwart the attack, which that regime-affiliated media attributed to the rebels.
Last week, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said: “The more Iran tries to build on Syrian soil, the deeper it will sink into the Syrian sands.”
