Israeli strikes kill at least 23 people in Syria

A war monitoring group says the death toll from Israeli airstrikes in Syria has risen to 23, including 15 non-Syrians, some of them Iranians.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group with a network of activists across Syria, released the figures on Wednesday’s airstrikes.

He said the dead included five Syrian troops, 16 Iranian and Iran-backed fighters, and two Syrian civilians.

The Israeli military said its fighter jets hit multiple targets belonging to Iran’s elite Quds force, including surface-to-air missiles, weapons warehouses and military bases. 

After the Syrian military fired an air defence missile, the Israeli military said a number of Syrian aerial defence batteries were also destroyed.

The Observatory said the air strikes targeted arms depots belonging to Iran’s elite Quds Force in the Damascus suburbs of Kisweh and Qudsaya. Abdurrahman added that several other areas were targeted in Wednesday’s strikes, including the Mazzeh airbase in western Damascus where air defence units are stationed.

The Observatory earlier reported that 11 people were killed, including seven foreigners.

Syria’s state SANA news agency said two civilians were killed by shrapnel when an Israeli missile hit a house in the town of Saasaa, southwest of Damascus. It said several others were wounded, including a girl in a residential building in the suburb of Qudsaya, also west of the Syrian capital.

It claimed that Syrian air defences destroyed most of the Israeli missiles before they reached their targets.

The strikes further burst into the open what’s been a long shadow war between Israel and its archenemy Iran. The two foes have increasingly clashed over what Israel says is Iran’s deeper presence along its borders.

“Yesterday’s Iranian attack towards Israel is further clear proof of the purpose of the Iranian entrenchment in Syria, which threatens Israeli security, regional stability and the Syrian regime,” the military said in a statement, adding that it would “continue operating firmly and resolutely” against Iran in Syria.

Israel intercepted the four rockets on the Golan Heights on Tuesday, which came amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iranian proxies along its borders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a series of warnings recently about Iranian aggression throughout the Middle East and has vowed to respond firmly.

“I made it clear: whoever harms us, we will harm them. That’s what we did tonight,” he said early Wednesday. “We will continue to aggressively protect Israel’s security.”

Israel’s new hard-line defence minister, Naftali Bennett, issued an equally firm statement.

“The rules have changed: whoever fires on Israel during the day will not sleep at night,” he said. “Our message to the leaders of Iran is simple: you are no longer immune. Any place you dispatch your tentacles, we will chop them off.”

The rare rocket fire comes a week after an Israeli airstrike against a top Palestinian militant based in Syria. 

Akram al Ajouri, a member of the leadership of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group who is living in exile, survived the attack but his son and granddaughter were killed.

Israel frequently strikes Iranian interests in Syria. But last week’s air strike appeared to be a rare assassination attempt of a Palestinian militant in the Syrian capital. It came the same day as another Israeli airstrike killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza, settling off the fiercest round of fighting there in years.

Iran has deployed forces in Syria, Israel's northern neighbour, on the request of Damascus, and supports the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon. It also supports the Islamic Jihad militant group in resisting the Israeli occupation of Gaza.

Netanyahu also has expressed concerns on Iran's expanding influence that counters Tel Aviv's sway in the region, including in Iraq and Yemen, where Tehran supports Shia Houthi rebels who are at war with a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.

Israel regularly conducts air strikes in Iraq, Syria and Gaza, in violation of international law that contributes in exacerbating an already volatile region.