Israeli strikes on Damascus kill at least 15 people, Syrian state media reports

Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian capital of Damascus have killed 15 people and wounded more than a dozen, according to Syrian state media.
News agency SANA said missiles hit Damascus’ Mazzeh neighbourhood and the suburb of Qudsaya, striking two buildings and injuring 16 people.
The Israeli military said the attacks struck infrastructure sites and command centers of the Islamic Jihad militant group in Syria, and had “inflicted significant damage to the terrorist organization’s command center and to its operatives”.
The blasts came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, was scheduled to meet representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh.
According to the Israeli military, Islamic Jihad had participated in the October 7 attacks on Israel alongside Hamas. The military “will continue to operate against the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization wherever necessary,” it said.
A representative of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group said that the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and that several members of the group were killed.
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Iran has sent scores of military advisers and thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the Middle East to Syria, in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
In 2011, an uprising in the country escalated into a civil war. Iran has also supported Assad economically, loaning him large sums of money and supplying fuel.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of neighboring Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.
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