an explosion in the Mezzeh area of Damascus.Image: GETTY IMAGES
Top Iranian Revolutionary Guard members killed in the strike in Syria.
An airstrike on the capital of Syria is said to have killed four senior officials of Iran’s security forces.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran reported that several Syrian personnel and four military advisors were killed in the incident, which it attributed to Israel.
Israel has not offered a statement. It has been attacking targets in Syria with ties to Iran for years.
After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, the Israel-Gaza conflict started, and these strikes have became more intense.
The Israeli attacks are described as “aggressive and provocative” by Iran’s foreign ministry, which calls on other countries to denounce them.
Leading members of the Revolutionary Guard, a significant Iranian military, political, and economic force, have been in Syria since the start of the civil conflict in 2011, lending support to President Bashar al-Assad’s administration against massive uprisings against it.
The incident on Saturday happened in the south-west Damascus district of Mazzeh, which is home to a military airport, embassies, restaurants, and the UN headquarters.
According to Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency, two more Guard personnel and the IRGC’s deputy chief of Syria intelligence were also killed in the attacks.
Ten people, including Revolutionary Guard leaders, were reportedly killed in the strikes, according to the UK-based campaign group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A military source was cited by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency as stating that although it had been able to halt part of the missiles, some civilians were killed and injured in the attacks, which it said had struck a residential structure.
It reported that buildings were also destroyed.
A local reported seeing “explosions” and “a large cloud of smoke” in the western Mazzeh area to the AFP news agency. “The sound was similar to a missile explosion, and minutes later I heard the sound of ambulances,” he said.
A top IRGC commander was murdered last month in what is believed to have been an Israeli airstrike near Damascus.
Since Hamas began an onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, killing almost 1,300 people, mostly civilians, and evacuating 240 hostages back to Gaza, the Middle East has been on high alert.
There are reportedly more than 132 hostages being held in the region. The health ministry headed by Hamas reports that since Israel began its military assault, more than 24,900 people have died in Gaza.
Israel claims that the goal of its air and military operations in Gaza is to eliminate Hamas.
Concerns about a bigger war escalating throughout the region have been raised by the confrontation, especially between Israel and Iran, bitter enemies, and in the midst of other overlapping problems.
When Iran and its neighbour Pakistan exchanged attacks this week, fears of an even larger battle increased.
Iran acknowledged on Tuesday that it had attacked a “Iranian terrorist group” in Pakistan with missiles and drones, killing two children in the process.
Nine people were killed when Islamabad retaliated a few days later with strikes it said were directed at “terrorist hideouts” in southeast Iran.
Iran and Pakistan removed their embassies from their respective capital cities, despite their claims that they were targeting militant bases in each other’s nations.