Israel Airstrike Hits Iranian Paramilitary Site at Damascus, Killing at Least Four, Officials Say

DAMASCUS, Syria — An Israeli strike on the Syrian capital on Saturday destroyed a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, killing at least four Iranians, Syrian and Iranian state press reported.The Syrian army said the building at the tightly guarded western Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh was entirely destroyed, adding that the Israeli air force fired the missiles while flying over Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Israeli military did not comment on the strike.A few hours later, an Israeli drone strike on a car near the Lebanese southern port city of Tyre killed two people, the state-run National News Agency reported. It was not immediately clear who the target was but such strikes in the past have killed officials from Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group as well as the Palestinian Hamas group.Nour News, which is believed to be close to Iran’s intelligence apparatus, identified two of the dead at Damascus as General Sadegh Omidzadeh, the intelligence deputy of the guard’s expeditionary Quds Force in Syria, and his deputy, who goes by the nom de guerre Hajj Gholam. A map of Syria depicting its capital, Damascus. APThe guard later issued a statement identifying the dead as Hojjatollah Omidvar, Ali Aghazadeh, Hossein Mohammadi, and Saeed Karimi. It gave no ranks for them. The difference in information could not be immediately reconciled.An opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least six people — five Iranians and a Syrian — were killed in the missile attack that struck while officials from Iran-backed groups were holding a meeting. The Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said three of the Iranians were commanders, adding that four other people are still missing under the rubble.Security forces deployed around the destroyed four-story building as ambulances and fire engines were seen in the area. A search for people trapped under the rubble was underway. Windows were also shattered in nearby buildings.A grocer near the scene of the strike said he heard five consecutive explosions at about 10:15 a.m., adding that he later witnessed the bodies of a man and a woman being taken away as well as three wounded people.“The shop shook. I stayed inside for few seconds then went out and saw the smoke billowing from behind the mosque,” the man, who asked that his name not be used for security reasons, told the Associated Press.The strike comes amid widening tensions in the region as Israel pushes ahead with its offensive in Gaza.Last month, an Israeli airstrike on a suburb of Damascus killed an Iranian general, Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria. Israel has also targeted Palestinian and Lebanese operatives in Syria over the past years.Earlier this month, a strike said to be carried out by Israel killed top Hamas commander Saleh Arouri at Beirut.Over the past weeks, rockets have been fired from Syria into northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, adding to tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border and attacks on ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Israel Airstrike Hits Iranian Paramilitary Site at Damascus, Killing at Least Four, Officials Say

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