Israeli missile strike on Damascus flat kills two, Syria says

The Syrian military said two civilians died when several missiles hit a block of flats in the Kafr Sousa district.

A monitoring group said two foreigners and a Syrian civilian were killed, and that the area was frequented by senior figures from Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Lebanese group Hezbollah.

The Israeli military has not commented.

However, it has previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes on targets in Syria that it says are linked to Iran and allied armed groups.

It has reportedly stepped up such strikes since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October, in response to cross-border attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups in Lebanon and Syria, who say they are acting in support of the allied Palestinian group Hamas.

Last month, a strike in Damascus that was blamed on Israel killed five senior Revolutionary Guards and several Syrian security personnel.

Syria's official Sana news agency cited a military source as saying a number of missiles were launched towards Damascus from the direction of the Israel-occupied Golan Heights shortly before 09:40 (07:40 GMT) on Wednesday.

The missiles struck a residential building in Kafr Sousa, in the west of the city, killing two civilians and wounding another, the source added.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - which monitors the war in Syria via a network of sources - said the missiles killed two non-Syrian nationals who had been inside the block of flats. A Syrian civilian who had been on the street below was killed by falling shrapnel, it added.

Video and photos posted online showed the aftermath of what appeared to be a precision strike on the fourth floor of the building, with extensive damage to the exterior and interior of one flat clearly visible.

Several vehicles parked on the street below were also damaged, including an empty bus reportedly belonging to the adjacent Al-Bawader private school.

In February 2023, a rocket attack blamed on Israel killed at least five people in Kafr Sousa, which is situated near a large complex used by security agencies.

One report said the target was an installation where Iranian and Syrian military experts had been meeting to advance programmes to develop drone or missile capabilities of Iran-backed groups.

Iran has built a wide network of allied armed groups and proxies operating in countries across the Middle East. They are all opposed to Israel and the US and sometimes refer to themselves as the "Axis of Resistance".

A number of the armed groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the US, UK and other countries.

-bbc