Israeli aircraft bombarded locations in the west of the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday, February 21, in what is the second strike of its kind in less than 12 hours, with no information on the extent of the damage.

Russian Sputnik news agency reported that Israeli aircraft attempted to target the western suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, while the air defenses managed to intercept most of the attacking missiles.

It added that the missiles were fired by Israeli aircraft from the skies of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, trying to target sites in the vicinity of Damascus.

The Syrian regime’s defense ministry and official media have not commented on the targeting, as Israel has not announced its responsibility for the targeting as of the time of this report’s release.

For its part, the local Al-Watan newspaper merely reported the sounds of explosions in the capital Damascus after hours had passed since the first strike, without providing further details, which was also reported by the local Sham FM radio station.

The Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post, citing “Syrian reports,” stated that alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted Damascus twice within hours on Wednesday, resulting in the deaths of at least two people.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (based in London) said that new explosions hit the capital Damascus and its surroundings on Wednesday afternoon, resulting from a second Israeli targeting of sites belonging to Iranian militias southwest of Damascus, without information about the extent of the damage. The observatory noted that air defenses attempted to confront the targeting.

The first strike

On Wednesday morning, a site close to the Iranian school in the Kafr Sousa neighborhood in the Syrian capital, Damascus, was hit by an Israeli strike, leaving dead and wounded according to official statistics.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that Israeli strikes targeted the Kafr Sousa area in the capital Damascus and published separate news photos showing the site of the strike, where a specific apartment in a multi-story residential tower was hit.

Meanwhile, the opposition website Sawt al-Asima (Damascus Voice) specializing in covering Damascus news, quoting special sources not named, said the Israeli strike was carried out using three guided missiles targeting several apartments in a building in Kafr Sousa, indicating that parts of the building were being used as “headquarters for Iranian militias.”

The raid on Damascus is the second of its kind this month, as Iranian media previously reported that a military advisor to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in an Israeli strike on the town of Sayyida Zainab, south of the capital Damascus, on February 2, which was confirmed by the Iranian Tabnak website.

Since the launch of the al-Aqsa Flood operation from Gaza on October 7, 2023, Israel has been conducting an ongoing military operation to this day. The frequency of Israeli attacks on Iran-backed militias in Syria has escalated, according to a study published by the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies.

The study divided the targets into two parts: the first includes 48 attacks between October and December 2023, in addition to 53 attacks from the beginning of 2024 until the current month of February, resulting in 104 fatalities and 32 wounded, including eight Iranian leaders.