Syrian soldier killed as Israel strikes Damascus, military site amid escalation

Beirut/Jerusalem,UPDATED: Oct 24, 2024 10:39 IST

Israel launched strikes on the Syrian capital Damascus and a military site near the western city of Homs on Thursday, the Syrian Defence Ministry said, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the region pushing for a halt to fighting.

The Israeli strikes targeted the central Damascus neighbourhood of Kafr Sousa and a military site in the Homs countryside, killing one soldier and injuring seven other people, the Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry said the strikes caused "material damage", but did not elaborate. Earlier in the day, Syrian state media said explosions were heard in Damascus after Israel struck a residential building in Kafr Sousa.

Israel typically does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Syria for years, but it has ramped up raids since last year's October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

On Wednesday, Israeli strikes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah said it fired precision guided missiles for the first time at Israeli targets.

The strikes on the edges of Beirut sent thick columns of flames shooting up into the night sky one after the other, shortly after an Israeli military spokesman issued evacuation warnings for the neighbourhood.

Another strike came with no warning, hitting the nearby office of pro-Iran broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, the station said. It said the office had been empty since the conflict began.

Lebanon's Health Ministry said one person was killed and five others, including a child, were wounded.

Hezbollah said in a statement late on Wednesday that it had escalated its attacks on Israel, using "precision missiles" for the first time and launched new types of drones on Israeli targets, without offering further details.

The Israeli military said four projectiles were identified as having been fired from Lebanon, two were intercepted and two fell to the ground.

The intensifying exchanges of fire come as Washington makes a final major push for peace between Israel and Iran-backed groups Hezbollah and Hamas before the November 5 US presidential election that could alter American policy.

Blinken, who has travelled to the Middle East regularly during the war, is making his first trip since Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, its most wanted enemy, whose death Washington hopes could provide an impetus for peace.

Washington is also aiming to head off a widening of the conflict in anticipation of Israeli retaliation for an Iranian October 1 missile attack.

Blinken said Israel's retaliation should not lead to greater escalation.

CONFLICT SPREADING

But the conflict appeared to be spreading, with new strikes around midday on Wednesday on Tyre, a Unesco-listed port city in south Lebanon, which also came after Israeli evacuation orders.

Tens of thousands of people have already fled Tyre as Israel steps up its campaign to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, both close allies of its arch Middle East enemy Iran.

The port is typically bustling, with fishermen, tourists and even UN peacekeepers on a break from deployment. Israel's evacuation orders this week have for the first time encompassed swathes of Tyre, right up to its ancient castle.

"We are better off dying with dignity than living on the street," said Batoum Zalghout, 25, who fled the latest evacuation zone for another part of the city. She said she had been already displaced with her two children five times.

The Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah command and control centres there, including its southern front headquarters. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

In Gaza, where Israel has intensified an assault on the northern edge of the territory since killing the leader of Hamas last week, health authorities and residents reported 42 people killed in fresh Israeli strikes, most in the north.

Among the dead were Mohammed and Bilal Abu Atwi -- a driver for UN aid agency Unrwa and his brother -- killed in a strike that blasted their UN-marked vehicle in Deir al-Balah.

"Our children have become martyrs as they were serving their community and people," their father Marwan said at the hospital where their bodies were laid out in white plastic bags.

The US has written to Israel, giving it 30 days to boost humanitarian aid access in Gaza, which has seen almost daily bombardments, or risk having some US military assistance cut.

Arriving in Lebanon for talks on ending hostilities, Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said providing arms to Israel posed a dilemma.

"On the one hand, Israel is attacked every day and not supporting it would mean that people are not (being) protected... On the other, it is also Germany's responsibility to stand up for international humanitarian law."

Blinken said it was now time for Israel to turn its military victories into "an enduring strategic success", to bring home hostages taken by Hamas and to end the conflict with a clear postwar plan.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon over the past month have killed nearly the entire leadership of Hezbollah, blows without precedent in the four decades of Israel's battles against the group.

In the year since fighters directed by Sinwar rampaged through Israeli towns killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, Israel has laid Gaza to waste to root out Hamas, killing nearly 43,000 Palestinians.

The past month's strikes on Lebanon have displaced at least 1.2 million Lebanese.