The Syrian Defense Ministry said on Monday (April 1) that Israel carried out strikes on an annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the capital of Syria, killing and injuring all those inside the building which was shaved. “The Israeli enemy launched airstrikes from the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting the Iranian embassy annex in Damascus,” the ministry said in a statement.
Iran’s foreign minister called on “the international community” to provide “a serious response” to strikes that killed at least five members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, including a commander, according to state media Iranian. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, for its part, reported eight deaths in this raid. “Israeli missiles destroyed the building of an annex to the Iranian embassy in Damascus,” according to this NGO based in the United Kingdom, but which has a vast network of sources in the country.
“Hossein Akbari, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, and his family were not injured in the Israeli attack,” Iranian news agency Nour said.
Intensification of strikes since October 7
This is the fifth raid in eight days to target Syria, where Iran and its allies support the power of Bashar al-Assad. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in neighboring Syria against Syrian government positions, pro-Iranian groups, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iranian military targets since the start of the war in that country in 2011.
The strikes have intensified since the start on October 7 of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah and Iran, enemies of Israel.
At the same time, Israeli strikes target Hezbollah officials in Lebanon, from where the pro-Iranian Shiite formation carries out attacks against Israel. The Jewish state rarely comments on its strikes in Syria but affirms that it would not allow Iran, its sworn enemy, to establish itself on its border.