On December 28, 2023, Israel carried out several airstrikes on the outskirts of Damascus, the capital of Syria, per a report by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
“Around 11:05 p.m. Thursday, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the southern region,” an unnamed military source revealed in a statement.
Additionally, the sources noted that the Syrian air defense system countered the attack and shot down the bulk of the rockets launched.
Previously, on December 25, the Israelis bombed the outskirts of the city Sayyida Zeinab area in an assault that resulted in the death of Brigadier General Razi Mousavi, a leading commander in the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.
The IRGC declared in a statement that Mousavi was killed “in a criminal missile attack by the fake and child-killing Zionist regime,” continuing by saying that the Israeli regime will “undoubtedly pay the price for this crime.”
Al-Mayadeen reported that Mousavi was one of “the most senior and prominent commanders of the Quds Force […] and one of the commanders entrusted with the Syrian file.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi proclaimed that the assassination of the IRGC commander demonstrated Israel’s “frustration, helplessness and incapacity.”
In the last several years, Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on Syria in the last several years. These strikes have been dialed up since the war in Gaza kicked off on October 7, 2023.
Israel has a vested interest in toppling the Assad regime, which has largely itself with Iran and its various proxies in the Shia crescent. This is one of the several attack vectors that the Zionist-Neoconservative will pursue to draw the US into a disastrous geopolitical conflict.
Foreign policy restrainers would be wise to sound the alarms on such a dastardly scheme. America does not need to be drawn into another protracted struggle.