Photo: Agence France-Presse Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria. Pictured is smoke after an Israeli strike on the outskirts of Damascus, November 22, 2023.
France Media Agency in Beirut
February 6, 2024
- Middle East
Israeli strikes on the Homs region, in central Syria, left five dead, including three civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), with the Syrian Defense Ministry citing an unspecified number of civilians killed or injured.
“Five people were killed, including three civilians — a woman, a child and a man — and seven others were injured in Israeli strikes on the city of Homs,” said the OSDH , revising upwards a previous toll which was four deaths.
The Syrian Ministry of Defense indicated that “the Israeli enemy carried out airstrikes from the region north of Tripoli (Lebanon), targeting several targets in the city of Homs and its surroundings […] killing and injuring a number of civilians.”
Syrian state television broadcast footage showing rescuers digging through the rubble of what appeared to be a collapsed building, and carrying a person on a stretcher.
According to the director of the OSDH, Abdel Rahman, the affected building in Homs completely collapsed.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria, mainly targeting pro-Iranian forces, notably the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, allied with the Syrian regime, as well as the Syrian army.
These attacks have intensified since the start on October 7 of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah.
Israel has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran, which supports the government of President Bashar al-Assad, to expand its presence there. On Saturday, the Israeli army claimed to have attacked more than 50 targets linked to Hezbollah in Syria on the ground and by air since October.
Last week, the United States also carried out strikes against groups supported by Iran in Syria and Iraq, leaving several dozen dead, in retaliation for a deadly attack against its troops in Jordan.