Israeli Air Force fighter jets on Monday night attacked Hezbollah terror targets in Syria’s Sayyidah Zaynab area, located about six miles south of Damascus, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed following local reports.
“Air Force fighter jets, under the direction of the Military Intelligence Directorate, conducted an aerial operation, striking Hezbollah terror targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Syria,” the military said in a Hebrew-language statement shared on social media.
The site served as “Hezbollah’s central intelligence body, responsible for intelligence assessments, the direction of intelligence activities and the intelligence gathering and detection capabilities,” the IDF added.
The army explained that Hezbollah’s intelligence division has a Syrian branch, which gathers independent intel on Israeli troop movements and until recently was under the direct command of the Iranian-backed terrorist group’s now-slain head of intelligence, Hassan Ali al-Zaima.
Reports in Syrian media said the strikes in Sayyidah Zaynab, a major center of Iranian terrorist activity, caused at least several casualties.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is affiliated with the country’s opposition, reported that the strikes targeted a farm controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Hezbollah proxy.
Israel rarely admits to attacks in Syria, although in February Jerusalem revealed that it had struck more than 50 targets belonging to Hezbollah and other Iran-backed terrorist groups in the country since Oct. 7, 2023.
On Thursday, the Israeli Air Force attacked Hezbollah infrastructure in the Syrian city of Al-Qusayr, located near the border with Lebanon.
“Following IDF intelligence, the IAF struck weapons-storage facilities and command centers used by Hezbollah’s Radwan Force and its Munitions Unit in the area of Al-Qusayr,” the IDF said. “Hezbollah’s Munitions Unit is responsible for storing weapons inside Lebanon and has recently expanded its activities into the town of Al-Qusayr.
“The Hezbollah terrorist organization endangers the security of Syrian and Lebanese civilians by embedding command centers and forces in civilian areas in both these countries,” the Israeli military noted.
On Sunday, the IDF revealed that special forces captured a pro-Iranian regime terrorist operative during a raid in Syria. The raid was carried out in “recent months” by members of the Egoz commando unit, along with field interrogators of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504.
Ali Soleiman al-Assi, a Syrian from Saida in the southern part of the country, was tasked by Tehran with “gathering intelligence on IDF troops in the border area for future terror activity of the network,” the IDF said in a post on social media on Sunday night.
“The operation prevented a future attack and led to the exposure of the operational methods of Iranian terror networks located near the Golan Heights. Al-Assi was transferred for further investigation,” it added.
