Two Syrian security agents and two Lebanese Hezbollah fighters were killed in overnight Israeli attacks on targets near Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) said on Monday.
“Two Hezbollah fighters and two Syrian guards” working at a Lebanese movement site were killed, while three other fighters and three civilians were injured late Sunday evening, the NGO said.
Two Hezbollah sites in the Sayyeda Zeinab sector south of the capital and “a radar unit” near Damascus airport were affected by the attacks, it added.
Hezbollah, an ally of the Damascus regime, Iran and the Palestinian Hamas, has claimed several attacks on northern Israel from southern Lebanon since the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas began on October 7.
The Lebanese movement issued press releases in Beirut on Monday announcing the deaths of two of its fighters, although without specifying where or when. But a source close to Hezbollah told AFP on condition of anonymity that they were killed in Syria.
Previously, the official Syrian agency Sana reported attacks by the “Israeli enemy” in various areas of the Damascus suburbs, without naming the targets or reporting casualties.
An AFP correspondent said he heard loud explosions in a Damascus suburb.
Asked by AFP about these raids, the Israeli army did not want to respond.
Israel rarely comments on its operations in neighboring Syria but says it wants to prevent Iran, its arch-enemy, from establishing itself on its doorstep, particularly through its allies such as Hezbollah.
These attacks have increased since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, sparked by a bloody attack on Israeli soil by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7.
On Sunday, the Israeli army reported numerous shots from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel, to which it responded, particularly targeting “a Hezbollah terrorist cell”.
The head of the Israeli army, Herzi Halevi, visited northern Israel on Sunday on the border with southern Lebanon, where this front became active again after October 7.
To return to “peace and security,” Israel must “cause harm, deter, kill Hezbollah operatives and demonstrate its superiority, which can also lead to strikes or war,” he said.
Three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed in an Israeli drone strike on their car in southern Syria on Friday, according to the OSDH.
Israel has intensified its attacks on Syrian territory since October 7.
But since the civil war there began in 2011, hundreds of airstrikes have been carried out against Syria, primarily targeting forces backed by Iran, Hezbollah and the Syrian army.