Israel’s most recent airstrikes near the Syrian capital caused damage and injured two soldiers.
At 1:20 a.m. local time (22:20 GMT), Israel carried out airstrikes on targets near Damascus, according to reports from the official media and the ministry of defence.
The Syrian air defences were “confronting hostile targets” in the early hours of Thursday morning, according to the SANA state news agency, the Associated Press reported.
According to state media citing a military source, Israel launched “a number of missiles” from the Golan Heights against the area around Damascus, inflicting “some material damage” and wounding two soldiers.
The source further stated that Syrian air defences had engaged the missiles and “shot down several of them.”
Syria’s defence ministry later reported that “at around 0:20 am (10:20 GMT), the Israeli enemy launched an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights hitting multiple points in the region of Damascus.”
The ministry said that the strikes injured two soldiers and caused property damage but did not give any information on the targets.
The government-controlled areas of Syria have been the subject of hundreds of airstrikes by Israel in recent years, including two missile strikes this month on Aleppo International Airport, the third such attack on the airport by Israeli troops in the previous six months.
Israel seldom admits to attacking targets in Syria, which it alleges are Iranian-backed militias camps, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has dispatched thousands of men to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that broke out in 2011.
The airport in Aleppo was shut down for two days last week after an Israeli attack. Since a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed more than 50,000 people, including more than 6,000 in Syria, on February 6, Aleppo International Airport has been a critical conduit for the movement of humanitarian aid into the country.
An organisation keeping track of the Syrian civil conflict reported that last week’s Israeli missile strikes damaged a rumoured weapons cache utilised by fighters with Iranian support at Aleppo Airport. The Israeli airstrike on the airport on March 7 resulted in the deaths of three persons and the suspension of operations for three days.
Israeli aeroplanes have targeted other crucial infrastructure, such as Syrian seaports, in addition to airports.
According to Israel, the purpose of these operations is to stop Iranian weaponry from reaching armed organisations in Syria that are supported by Tehran.
Syria’s civil war has claimed about 500,000 lives, and about half of the pre-war population has been ejected from their homes.