Cairo, May 3 (EFE) – At least one person was killed and four were wounded early Saturday morning in Israeli bombings in the outskirts of Damascus, Hama, and two locations in Daraa, official sources reported.
“A civilian was killed as a result of Israeli airstrikes on the outskirts of the town of Harasta in the Damascus countryside,” Syria’s official news agency SANA reported, noting that Israeli warplanes flew over Damascus before targeting the town on the outskirts of the city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documented violence in the country since 2011, said Israeli aircraft carried out 10 bombing raids around Harasta, targeting “Regiment 41 near the military hospital.”
SANA said at least four people were wounded “in the Israeli occupation’s shelling on the outskirts of Shatha, northwest of Hama province,” without providing further details.
The Observatory said the attack was in the al-Gab plain in the Hama countryside “within the framework of the ongoing military escalation” by Israel against Syrian territory.
Another area targeted was the village of Mauzebain in the north of the southern province of Deraa.
Israeli warplanes also targeted Izraa , according to SANA.
SyriaTV noted that the attack on Izraa targeted “the 175th regiment,” while broadcasting an image of a flare-up among the buildings in the targeted area.
The Observatory described these attacks as “the most violent since the beginning of the year,” as it counted more than 20 air raids in different parts of Syria, including various points and localities outside Damascus.
This wave of attacks comes shortly after Israel bombed positions near the presidential palace in Damascus, which the new Syrian authorities described as “a serious escalation against the institutions of the state and its sovereignty,” and which comes at a time of growing sectarian tension in the country.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz described the incursion as “a clear message to the Syrian regime,” assuring that they would not allow Syrian forces to threaten the Druze community.
Armed groups linked to the Druze community in Syria have been engaged in fierce clashes with state security forces since Tuesday, leaving more than a hundred dead, according to the Observatory, and provoking an Israeli intervention on behalf of the religious minority. EFE
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