Syrian media and activists said that last night, Israeli warplanes bombed sites in the vicinity of the capital, Damascus, and others in Homs Governorate (central), the first raids announced in about a month, while there were reports of deaths of Syrian regime members in these strikes.
The Syrian news agency (SANA) said that the Syrian air defenses responded to what it described as an Israeli aggression, without any details about the sites targeted by the Israeli fighters.
The agency added that the invading planes came from the direction of Lebanese airspace.
The Syrian state television had reported hearing explosions in the sky of the capital, Damascus.
The official media quoted a Syrian military source as saying that the strikes targeted parts of the central and southern regions, without specifying specific locations.
The same source confirmed that the Syrian defenses shot down some Israeli missiles, noting that the damage was material only.
From our air defenses confronting the Israeli aggression pic.twitter.com/3HmLMJXIwK
— Sana Urgent (@SanaAjel) June 8, 2021
Iranian-backed armed factions
While the official media did not specify the nature of the sites that were targeted, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Israeli raids targeted an air defense battalion in the town of Dumayr in Damascus countryside, the vicinity of Damascus International Airport, and the southwestern part of Homs Governorate, which includes Iranian and Lebanese armed groups from Hezbollah.
The observatory said that the raids on the countryside of Homs killed 8 members of the Syrian regime.
For its part, Sham Network reported that the Israeli planes targeted the vicinity of Damascus Airport with two raids, the Scientific Research Center in the Jamraya area, and the headquarters of the Fourth Division in the Al-Saboura area, west of the Syrian capital.
These Israeli air strikes are also the first since the re-election of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with 95% of the vote late last month in elections rejected by the opposition and many countries, and it is also the first after the recent Israeli war on Gaza.
The last Israeli strikes inside Syria dated back to the dawn of the fifth of last May, and at that time targeted sites in the countryside of Latakia (west).
In the past few years, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on sites inside Syria, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that Tel Aviv will not allow Iran to establish its military presence on Syrian territory.