ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A vehicle was hit by a suspected Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus on Saturday, a war monitor reported.
“An Israeli drone targeted a vehicle on the Damascus - Beirut road near the al-Zabadani area… leading to the death of one person inside,” the UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.
Syrian state media and the Israeli army have yet to comment on the strike.
Earlier on Saturday, SOHR said that Israeli jets conducted overnight airstrikes near the Syria-Lebanon border, targeting a convoy that was entering Syrian territory. There were no casualties reported.
“The two airstrikes that were carried out yesterday by Israeli fighter jets targeted Matraba area which is under symbolic control by regime forces,” SOHR said, adding that the area is used by Lebanese Hezbollah to move trucks and militiamen across the border.
Israel has carried out frequent strikes on foes throughout the region, primarily targeting Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas.
The Israeli army announced on Tuesday that it killed Fuad Shukr (also known as Sayyid Mushan), the right-hand man of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the group’s senior military commander in an airstrike in Beirut.
In Syria, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on regime-controlled areas throughout the country’s 13-year civil war, often claiming to strike pro-Iran militias, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah which supports the Syrian army.
While it rarely comments on strikes attributed to it in Syria, Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate its arch-rival Iran to gain a foothold there.
The strikes have increased since October 7, when Palestinian Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli territory that prompted Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. There are fears that conflict could spill over into the wider region.
