“The attack resulted in the death of five soldiers and some material damage,” the official Sana news agency said on Saturday, citing a military source. The strike in the early hours of the morning came “from the northeastern side of Lake Tiberias, targeting the Damascus airport and some places south of Damascus,” he added. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the strikes killed five Syrian soldiers and said two Iranian-backed fighters were also killed. The watchdog, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria, said Israel was targeting locations where Iran-backed groups were located near Damascus airport and the surrounding area. An Israeli strike in the countryside around the capital and south of the coastal province of Tartus killed three soldiers last month. In June, Israeli airstrikes shut down Damascus airport for nearly two weeks. Last month, Israeli airstrikes targeted Aleppo airport twice. Rights Watch said at the time that those raids targeted weapons depots belonging to Iranian-backed militias. Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes against its northern neighbor, targeting government troops as well as allied forces backed by Iran and Hezbollah fighters. Israel rarely comments on individual strikes, but has acknowledged carrying out hundreds. It says its air campaign is necessary to stop would-be enemy Iran from gaining ground on its doorstep.
