Syrian State Media: Israel Missiles Target Damascus

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Facts

  • Syria's state-affiliated media outlet SANA reported early on Wednesday that Israel launched an air attack against the country’s capital Damascus, leaving one Syrian soldier with “serious injuries" and resulting in "some material damage.”1
  • SANA reported that the strikes occurred at around 1:05 a.m. local time and came from the direction of the Golan Heights, hitting targets in southwest Damascus, adding that Syrian air defense systems intercepted some of the missiles, but this wasn't independently verified.2
  • Another state-affiliated Syrian news channel, Al-Ikhbariya, posted videos showing lights blinking in the sky over Damascus in what it claimed were missiles being intercepted.3
  • The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that Israel targeted military warehouses belonging to Iranian militias near the Damascus airport and an area southwest of the capital, adding that "violent explosions" were heard.4
  • Though Israel rarely comments on specific strikes in Syria, it has admitted to conducting hundreds of strikes in the country over the last decade. The SOHR claims that Wednesday’s strike was Israel’s 18th time targeting sites on Syrian territory since the start of the year.4
  • Israel has allegedly carried out hundreds of attacks against what it says are Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting Pres. Bashar al-Assad in the ongoing civil war.5

Sources: 1Al Jazeera, 2The New Arab, 3Iran International, 4The Times of Israel, and 5Crisis24.

Narratives

  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Foreign Affairs. Israel has been conducting airstrikes against suspected Iranian weapons transfers and personnel and its proxies in Syria for almost a decade. Though the strikes are part of a low-intensity conflict to slow Iran's growing entrenchment in Syria, the West has seemingly dropped its previous plan of diplomacy to allow Israel and other allies to instead use military force to settle its grievances with Tehran. This risky strategy underestimates the magnitude and repercussions of a military escalation.
  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Al- Monitor. Syria is a conflict zone with many actors, all of which can cause this "shadow war" to go hot, and Iran — with its coordinated effort with Russia, which controls much of the Syrian airspace — risks pushing it over the edge. Israel has been clear that it will not permit Iran to freely move weapons and fighters through Syria if such activities threaten Israeli security, and it is right to target Iranian assets in any of the countries into which Tehran has dug its tentacles.