8 killed as Israel strikes Iran embassy annex in Syria, war monitor reports

Agence France-Presse correspondents at the scene confirmed the building next to the embassy, an annex, had been levelled, in an upscale neighbourhood of Damascus.

Agence France-Presse images showed a pile of rubble about two stories high beside a fenced compound.

Iranian media also reported that the strikes in Damascus completely destroyed the annex building, and that the ambassador was unharmed.

“Hossein Akbari, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, and his family were not harmed in the Israeli attack,” Iran’s Nour news agency said.

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Syria’s defence ministry said there were many “wounded, killed” in an Israeli strike, and the Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad denounced the attack after visiting the site.

“We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack that targeted the Iranian consulate building in Damascus killing a number of innocent people,” Mekdad said in a statement carried by state media SANA.

SANA earlier reported that “our air defence systems confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus”.

Israeli strikes on targets in Syria, mostly Syrian army positions as well as Iran-backed combatants including fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, have intensified since October when Israel began fighting Hezbollah-allied Hamas militants in the Gaza strip.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, Israel’s arch enemy.

Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire along the Lebanese border.

The incident in Damascus came three days after the Observatory reported Israeli strikes that killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, said the monitor.

“Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective,” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told Agence France-Presse after the Friday strikes.

“Israel warplanes hit targets in both countries almost daily in a sustained effort to destroy Hezbollah military infrastructure and to also tarnish the group’s image,” he said.

“Israeli strikes have clearly escalated in size and depth” in Lebanon, he added.