At least four Syrian soldiers were killed and four others injured in a night attack by the Israeli army on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus. A military spokesman reported that the attack took place around 02:20 (local time) when Israeli troops attacked from the Golan Heights, according to a statement by the Syrian Defense Ministry published on its profile on the social network Facebook.
Hours earlier, the state news agency reported that air defense systems had been activated after an attack was registered around the Syrian capital. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a reporter in the Arab country have pointed out that there have been “violent explosions” “near” the capital “during attempts by air defenses to stop them”.
The Golan Heights is an area that Israel partially captured from Syria during the Six Day War (1967) and Yom Kippur War (1973) and effectively annexed in 1981, unrecognized by the international community. Israel generally acknowledges attacks in Syria and argues that it wants to prevent the Iranian authorities, which support Damascus as part of the war that broke out, from establishing Iranian bases in the country and from supplying arms to the Lebanese Shia militia party Hezbollah in 2011.