Israeli Airstrikes Target Damascus, One Syrian Soldier Killed

Israeli airstrikes targeted sites in and around the Syrian capital of Damascus early Sunday, killing one Syrian soldier and wounding three others, Syrian media has reported.

“A soldier was killed and three others injured following an aerial aggression launched by the Israeli enemy after midnight,” a military source told the Syrian news agency SANA.

The source added that the attack was launched from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and that Israel targeted “several military positions in the southern region and a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district of Damascus.”

Israel has been bombing Syria with impunity for years and rarely acknowledges its attacks, but the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) took credit for the Sunday morning bombing.

The IDF said the strikes were a response to a drone attack on Israel’s city of Eilat and claimed it targeted a Syrian military command center, air defenses, and other infrastructure.

It’s unclear if the Syrian military was responsible for the drone attack on Eilat. Iraqi Shia militias have taken credit for previous similar attacks, and the incident occurred amid soaring tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, which is allied with Shia militias that operate in both Iraq and Syria.

Since October 7, Israel has significantly escalated its bombing campaign in Syria. The most notable bombing was the April 1 attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, which killed a senior Iranian general and provoked the first-ever Iranian attack on Israeli territory.