Syrian TV reported on Tuesday that Israeli missiles fell near Damascus international airport in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported that two missiles, presumably from the Golan Heights, targeted a weapons depot and warehouses belonging to non-Syrian militias, most likely Hezbollah, near the airport.
Increased numbers of Iranian jets in the area were reported in recent days by social media.
Syrian air-defense systems reportedly failed to intercept the missiles, which exploded around 1 a.m., although some reports state that Syria managed to intercept an additional two.
Syria’s pro-Assad SANA state news agency called the attack the “Zionist enemy’s support for terrorists,” conducted to “uplift their morale in light of the losses they have recently experienced.”
Just last week, a White House official told CNN that the Israel Defense Forces was responsible for a lethal strike on a base in eastern Syria on June 17.
On Sunday, pro-Assad forces took over an abandoned U.N. post in no-man’s land between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights.
The post had been abandoned in 2014 by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, an organization established to oversee a peaceful border between Israel and Syria following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. The post was located in an area that Syria and Israel agreed would be free from national troops and has been overseen by UNDOF since 1974.
The international body said it has detected new infrastructure work at the site since its abandonment of the location.
UNDOF’s budget to prevent the outbreak of war on the Israel-Syria border from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018 was $62,276,000.
