Three People Killed in Israeli Airstrike on Damascus

A car drives past a Syrian flag flying at half mast during national mourning after Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday, in Damascus, Syria, September 29, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
A car drives past a Syrian flag flying at half mast during national mourning after Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday, in Damascus, Syria, September 29, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
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Three People Killed in Israeli Airstrike on Damascus

A car drives past a Syrian flag flying at half mast during national mourning after Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday, in Damascus, Syria, September 29, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
A car drives past a Syrian flag flying at half mast during national mourning after Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday, in Damascus, Syria, September 29, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi

Three civilians were killed and nine others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian capital Damascus, Syrian state media said early on Tuesday citing a military source.

Syrian state television earlier said that one of its presenters was killed in an Israeli strike on Damascus. It was unclear whether the presenter was among the three civilians mentioned by state media.

The Israeli air attack also caused a significant damage to private property, state media added.

Syrian air defenses intercepted "hostile targets" over the vicinity of Damascus three times in a row in one night, following explosions that were heard in the capital, state media said earlier on Tuesday.

When asked about the reported attack, the Israeli military said it does not comment on foreign media reports.



Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes 'Cruelty'

A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes 'Cruelty'

A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.

Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican's various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza, Reuters reported.

"Yesterday, children were bombed," said the pope. "This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart."

The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel's military campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas.

In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that "what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”

Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope's remarks amounted to a "trivialization" of the term genocide.

Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.

The patriarch's office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope's remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.