Israel launches fresh missile attack on targets near Syrian capital

Damascus, Dec 29: A fresh Israeli missile attack targetted the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus, triggering a response from the Syrian air defence system, the media reported.

The Syrian army said on Thursday in a statement that the "Israeli enemy" carried out an aerial attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, targetting some points in the southern region, without elaborating on the targeted sites.

It added that the Syrian air defence forces intercepted most of them, with losses limited to material damages.

Previous Israeli strikes in Syria had reportedly targetted military sites suspected of harbouring Iranian-backed militias, arms convoys, and alleged weapons storage facilities, according to the opposition watchdog group -- the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Israel has recently upped its attacks on Syrian targets in tandem with its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, Xinhua news agency reported.

Syria has been engulfed in over 12-year war, with the government forces of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, fighting against various opposition groups.

Israel, on the other hand, has a long-standing policy of preventing Iran from establishing a military presence in Syria by repeatedly conducting airstrikes to destroy alleged Iranian weapons supplies.

The previous Israeli attack in Syria on Monday evening killed Seyyed Razi Mousavi, who was also one of the longest-serving advisors of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria and a close associate of the late Iranian top commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by a US drone attack in Iraq in 2020.