Strong explosions rocked Damascus on Tuesday, AFP journalists reported, as an NGO said Israel has conducted about 250 airstrikes on Syria since President Bashar al-Assad’s fall from power on Sunday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israeli forces have “destroyed major military installations in Syria”, including airports, radar facilities, weapons depots, military research centres, and naval vessels.
The UK-based monitoring group said Israel also struck an air defence unit near the northwestern port city of Latakia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Monday that the occupied Golan Heights would remain under Israeli control “for eternity”, one day after Assad’s fall.
“Today, everyone understands the vital importance of our presence on the Golan and not at its foothills”, Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem.
He praised former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2019 recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally.
Netanyahu’s comments came after he ordered troops to take control of a neutral zone along the occupied Golan, a move the UN called a violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah condemned the intensifying Israeli airstrikes, saying Israel was seeking to occupy “additional territory in the Golan Heights” and “strike and destroy Syrian state defensive capabilities”.
The Shi’ite movement expressed support for “Syria and its people” in its first public statement since Assad’s overthrow by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
(information from CNA, amna.gr)
