Syria Intercepts Israeli Missile Barrage Targeting Damascus

Syrian air defenses intercepted an Israeli missile barrage targeting the vicinity of Damascus. (AFP file photo)
Syrian air defenses intercepted an Israeli missile barrage targeting the vicinity of Damascus. (AFP file photo)
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Syria Intercepts Israeli Missile Barrage Targeting Damascus

Syrian air defenses intercepted an Israeli missile barrage targeting the vicinity of Damascus. (AFP file photo)
Syrian air defenses intercepted an Israeli missile barrage targeting the vicinity of Damascus. (AFP file photo)

Syrian air defenses confronted Israeli missiles targeting an area near the capital, Damascus, downing some of them, Syria's state news agency reported Monday.

SANA cited a military source as saying the missiles came from the skies over eastern Lebanon, and targeted outposts in the vicinity of Damascus, resulting in material losses.

No other details were immediately available, and there was no comment from Israel on the attack which occurred shortly after 3 a.m. in Damascus. Israel carries out raids on Syria mostly overnight.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes targeted a Hezbollah weapons cache in al-Qutayfah city, northeast of Damascus.

Israel has staged hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria over the past decade of the war in the Arab country, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.

Israel has acknowledged, however, that it is targeting bases of Iran-allied militias, such as Lebanon's Hezbollah. It says it is going after positions and arms shipments believed to be bound for the groups. Hezbollah is fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the country's war.

Israel says Iranian presence on its northern frontier is a red line, justifying its strikes on facilities and weapons inside Syria.



Israeli Strikes Kill 12 in Gaza as War Grinds Into the New Year

A Palestinian child wounded during the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip receives treatment at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Palestinian child wounded during the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip receives treatment at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Israeli Strikes Kill 12 in Gaza as War Grinds Into the New Year

A Palestinian child wounded during the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip receives treatment at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Palestinian child wounded during the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip receives treatment at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, officials said Wednesday, as the nearly 15-month war ground on into the new year with no end in sight.

One strike hit a home in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory, where Israel has been waging a major operation since early October, The Associated Press reported.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says seven people were killed, including a woman and four children, and that at least a dozen other people were wounded.
Another strike overnight into Wednesday in the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed a woman and a child, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.

A third strike early Wednesday in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three people, according to the nearby Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital, which received the bodies.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times.
Hundreds of thousands are living in tents on the coast as winter brings frequent rainstorms and temperatures drop below 10 degrees Celsius at night. At least four infants have died of hypothermia.