Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

16 Killed in Israeli Raids on Syria


Wed 13 Jan 2021 | 11:41 AM
Ahmad El-Assasy

At least five Syrian soldiers and 11 fighters of pro-Iranian factions were killed in raids launched at dawn on Wednesday by Israeli warplanes on weapons stores and military sites in eastern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

SOHR said that the Israeli Air Force "launched more than 18 airstrikes in the area extending from the city of Deir Deir ez-Zur to the Syrian-Iraqi border in the Al Bukamal desert."

"So far, there are 16 dead (5 are from the Syrian army and 11 from Pro-Iran militias,".

The Observatory pointed out that the raids "resulted in the destruction of weapons depots." It noted that the targeted sites are "militias of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Lebanese Hezbollah, and Fatemiyoun. These militias take from these sites centers for training and preparing fighters."

On its part, the Syrian official news agency "SANA" said that After midnight, the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression against the city of Deir ez-Zur and the Al Bukamal area in the southeastern countryside of the governorate.

A military source told SANA in a statement that at 01:10 on Wednesday dawn, the Israeli enemy carried out air aggression on Deir Ezzor City and al-Bukamal area.

The Syrian air defenses have confronted Israeli repeated attacks over the years of the terrorist war on Syria, as the Israeli enemy was directly interfering to support the terrorist organizations, particularly Daesh terrorist organization, according to SANA.

Israel has launched hundreds of air and missile strikes on Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in its northern neighbor in 2011. These strikes have targeted sites of the Syrian army and other sites of Iranian forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

In a rare report, the Israeli army said two weeks ago that during 2020, it had bombed about 50 targets in Syria.

The annual report of the Israeli army did not provide details of the targets that were bombed, but since the outbreak of the conflict in Syria in 2011, the Hebrew state has launched hundreds of strikes targeting the Syrian regular forces, Iranian forces supporting them, and fighters from the Lebanese Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside the regime forces.

Israel pledged to continue preventing Iran from establishing a military presence in its northern neighbor.

The war in Syria has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions of others since 2011.