Israel launched at least two airstrikes on Damascus' western Mazzeh neighborhood and a suburb to the northwest on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and injuring 16, according to Syria’s state news agency.
The strikes targeted two buildings in Mazzeh and Qudsaya, with one missile damaging a five-story building’s basement, an Associated Press (AP) journalist reported.
The Israeli military confirmed it struck infrastructure and command centers linked to the Islamic Jihad group in Syria, claiming significant damage to the group’s operations and leadership.
The airstrikes in Damascus and the nearby suburb came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was scheduled to meet in the Syrian capital with representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh.
The Israeli military said Islamic Jihad had participated alongside Hamas, the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, in the Oct. 7, 2023, incursion on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw 250 others abducted into Gaza.
The military said it "will continue to operate against Islamic Jihad wherever necessary.”
Israel's rampage has spilled into the wider region, affecting Lebanon, Syria and leading to strikes between Israel and Iran.
The war has left much of Gaza in ruins and has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities.
An official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group said the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and that several members of the group were killed.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
Syria’s state news agency SANA said that the country’s air defenses were activated against a “hostile target” south of the central city of Homs. It gave no further details.
Tehran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government since a 2011 uprising turned into a full-blown civil war and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide of the conflict in his favor.
Iran has sent scores of military advisers to Syria to fight on Assad’s side.
Tehran has also been an economic lifeline for Assad, sending fuel and credit lines worth billions of dollars.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of neighboring Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,200 wounded, the country’s Health Ministry reported.
Lebanon’s state media said an Israeli airstrike Thursday hit a building in Baalbek city in eastern Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding five others.
The strike on Baalbek came without warning. The Israeli military did not immediately comment, and the target was not clear.
Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes on Thursday, targeting various areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre and the Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.
Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs in a clear uptick in attacks on the area over the past two days, with the Israeli army issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the suburbs.
The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centers.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the death toll in Lebanon since the war began on Oct. 8, 2023, has reached 3,365, while those wounded are 14,344.
Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
Before the war intensified on Sept. 23, Hezbollah said that it had lost nearly 500 members, but the group has stopped releasing statements about their killed members since.
United Nations peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said the U.N. remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon, despite intense ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah members.
UNIFIL has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah across the boundary known as the Blue Line, despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to pull back five kilometers (three miles) from the border.
UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.
Lacroix visited some of the wounded peacekeepers during his trip.
UNIFIL forces "continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important to preserve that presence everywhere,” Lacroix said. “Had we vacated some of the positions, that would have certainly jeopardized the capacity for UNIFIL to continue today, but probably even more importantly, that would have significantly undermined the capacity for UNIFIL to play a role, tomorrow, when the cessation of hostilities takes place – hopefully sooner than later.”
Lacroix said there is still a "large consensus that Resolution 1701 remains the critical framework for settlement,” referring to the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the brutal monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 but which has never been fully implemented by either party.
