Syria accuses Israel of airstrikes in Damascus for second night in a row

The Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes in the Syrian capital Damascus shortly after midnight on Friday, for the second night in a row, according to Syria’s state-run media outlet.

The state news agency SANA reported that Syria’s air defenses engaged “hostile targets” over the capital. Syria regularly claims to intercept Israeli missiles, though military analysts doubt such assertions.

There were no immediate reports of injuries in the strike. It was also not immediately clear what sites were allegedly targeted.

Footage circulating on social media showed explosions in the sky, apparently from Syrian air defense missiles.

Less than 24 hours earlier, SANA said that the IAF targeted sites in Damascus, wounding two soldiers and causing material damage.

The conditions of the two soldiers were not immediately clear. In recent years, numerous Syrian soldiers serving in air defense units have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.

الدفاعات الجوية السورية تسقط صواريخ اسرائيلية سماء #دمشق .#سورية pic.twitter.com/WRpclnO2BE

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As a general rule, Israel’s military does not comment on specific strikes in Syria, but it has acknowledged conducting hundreds of sorties against Iran-backed groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country over the last decade.

The IDF says it also attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror organization. Additionally, airstrikes attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.

Thursday and Friday’s alleged airstrikes came after two attacks in recent weeks against the Aleppo International Airport, also attributed to Israel. Those attacks temporarily closed the airport’s runway.

One of the strikes last week also targeted an underground munitions depot at the adjacent Nairab military airport, according to two unnamed “regional intelligence sources” who spoke to the Reuters news agency. The sources said the site was used to store missile-guided systems that had been delivered by Iranian cargo flights.

Also this month, Israel carried out a rare daytime strike against targets in northwestern Syria, injuring three soldiers and causing damage, SANA said.

In January, the Syrian army said Israel’s military fired missiles toward the Damascus International Airport, putting it out of service temporarily and killing two soldiers. That attack came amid Israeli fears the Damascus airport was being used for funneling Iranian weaponry into the country.