Israel strikes Damascus and military site near Homs, Syria says

Israel launched strikes on the Syrian capital Damascus and a military site near the western city of Homs on Thursday, the Syrian defence ministry said.
The Israeli strikes targeted the central Damascus neighbourhood of Kafr Sousa and a military site in the Homs countryside, killing one soldier and injuring seven other people, the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the strikes caused “material damage”, but did not elaborate. Earlier in the day, Syrian state media said explosions were heard in Damascus after Israel struck a residential building in Kafr Sousa.
Israel typically does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.
French president Emmanuel Macron has called for an end to fighting in Lebanon, criticising Israel’s incursion into the south of the country, and calling on Hizbullah to stop its operations.
He was speaking at an international conference in Paris to rally humanitarian and military aid for Lebanon which is being attended by about 70 nations and international groups, including Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati.
Speaking about the UN peacekeeping force, Unifil, which has been operational in Lebanon since 1978, Mr Macron said it needed to adapt its role to the circumstances, and that attacks on it by Israeli forces were not justified.
The latest Israeli strikes come as US secretary of state Antony Blinken toured the Middle East pushing for a halt to fighting.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Syria for years, but it has increased raids since last year’s October 7th attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas, which sparked the Gaza war.
On Wednesday, Israeli strikes pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbullah said it fired precision-guided missiles for the first time at Israeli targets.
The strikes on the edges of Beirut sent thick columns of flames shooting up into the night sky one after the other, shortly after an Israeli military spokesman issued evacuation warnings for the neighbourhood.
Another strike came with no warning, hitting the nearby office of pro-Iran broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, the station said. It said the office had been empty since the conflict began. Lebanon’s health ministry said one person was killed and five others, including a child, were wounded.
The Israeli military named on Wednesday six Palestinian Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza who it said were also members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad militant groups, an allegation the Qatari network rejected as an attempt to silence journalists.
The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East programme said on X that the allegations amounted to smearing Palestinian journalists “with unsubstantiated ‘terrorist’ labels”.
Three Lebanese soldiers were killed, including an officer, in an Israeli strike during the evacuation of wounded people on the outskirts of the village of Yater in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said in a statement on Thursday.
The intensifying exchanges of fire come as Washington makes a final major push for peace between Israel and Iran-backed groups Hizbullah and Hamas before the November 5th US presidential election that could alter US policy.
Mr Blinken, who has travelled to the Middle East regularly during the war, is making his first trip since Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, its most wanted enemy, whose death Washington hopes can provide an impetus for peace.
Washington is also aiming to head off a widening of the conflict in anticipation of Israeli retaliation for an Iranian October 1st missile attack. Mr Blinken said Israel’s retaliation should not lead to greater escalation.
But the conflict appeared to be spreading, with new strikes around midday on Wednesday on Tyre, a Unesco-listed port city in south Lebanon, which also came after Israeli evacuation orders.
The Israeli military said it had targeted Hizbullah command and control centres there, including its southern front headquarters. There was no immediate comment from Hizbullah.
In Gaza, where Israel has intensified an assault on the northern edge of the territory since killing the leader of Hamas last week, health authorities and residents reported 42 people killed in fresh Israeli strikes, most in the north.
Among the dead were Mohammed and Bilal Abu Atwi – a driver for UN aid agency Unrwa and his brother – killed in a strike that blasted their UN-marked vehicle in Deir al-Balah.
“Our children have become martyrs as they were serving their community and people,” their father Marwan said at the hospital where their bodies were laid out in white plastic bags.
The US has written to Israel, giving it 30 days to boost humanitarian aid access in Gaza, which has seen almost daily bombardments, or risk having some US military assistance cut.
In the year since fighters directed by Sinwar rampaged through Israeli towns killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, Israel has laid Gaza to waste to root out Hamas, killing nearly 43,000 Palestinians.
The past month’s strikes on Lebanon have displaced at least 1.2 million Lebanese. – Reuters