Two people died on Thursday near Beit Jinn, west of Damascus, in an airstrike attributed to Israel.
Palestinian reports said that the men, members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, were riding a motorcycle when they were targeted by a drone strike, about six miles from the border with the Israeli part of the Golan Heights.
However, according to Lebanese media reports, the terrorist organization denied that the slain men were members.
Meanwhile, the IDF on Thursday announced its tanks had struck two buildings constructed by the Syrian army in the security zone between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights.
“The strike was carried out after the IDF identified a second temporary structure in the security zone,” the statement said, adding that the buildings constituted a “blatant violation of the Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria (1974).”
Under the agreement, the two countries are separated by a 50-mile-long, 155-square-mile buffer zone, which is monitored by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
המבנים היוו הפרה בוטה של הסכם הפרדת הכוחות בין ישראל לסוריה (1974).
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) September 21, 2023
צה"ל רואה במשטר הסורי אחראי לכל אשר קורה בשטחו ולא יאפשר ניסיונות להפרת הסכם ההפרדה
Last week, two Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting a military site in the port of Tartus, where Russia maintains a naval base.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported that six additional people were injured in the “Israeli aggression against some of our air defense positions.”
Hours later, the Israel Air Force carried out strikes in Hama, Syria, reportedly in the vicinity of the Scientific Studies and Research Center, known by its French acronym, CERS, which is involved in the production of chemical weapons as well as Hezbollah’s precision missile project.
Israel has reportedly targeted the facility on several occasions in the past.
The strikes against air defense batteries in Tartus may have been carried out to help Israeli fighter jets to subsequently strike CERS, according to reports.
Late last month, strikes attributed to Jerusalem put Aleppo International Airport out of service, with Ynet citing a Saudi report as saying they had destroyed an “Iranian military shipment containing sensitive equipment.”
Israel is believed to have struck hundreds of targets in Syria in recent years as part of an effort to prevent Iranian military entrenchment in the country. However, Israel rarely acknowledges these incidents.
On Aug. 7, four Syrian soldiers were reportedly killed and four others wounded in an Israeli strike near Damascus.
A week later, unexplained “violent explosions” rocked the city, with the Syria Observatory for Human Rights reporting that the blasts had destroyed an arms depot belonging to Iranian-backed groups.
Iran recently threatened to avenge the strikes, with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian saying during a visit to the Syrian capital, “The criminal practices by the Zionist entity in the region will not remain without retaliation.”
The Islamic Republic provided immense support to President Bashar al-Assad during Syria’s long civil war, and continues to arm terrorist outfits such as Hezbollah.
