Israel strikes Iranian weapons shipment outside Damascus – report

The Israeli Air Force reportedly struck the Damascus-bound shipment as well as other Syrian army sites. 

By World Israel News Staff

Israel struck Syrian army and Iranian sites west of Damascus on Sunday, Syrian opposition media reported, triggering Syrian air defenses in the early hours of the day.

The reported attack, which took place between the villages of Al-Assad and Al-Dimas, was not mentioned in the country’s state-affiliated media.

Last month, Israeli tanks struck two structures inside a demilitarized zone in Syria, with the IDF saying the buildings violated a half-century-old ceasefire agreement between the two countries.

The structures were being used by the Syrian military, amounting to what the army called a “clear violation” of the 1974 cease-fire.The Israeli army did not provide any information on what the structures were used for or when they were built.

In Syria, the pro-government Sham FM radio station said Israel’s military struck an area on the edge of the Syrian side of the Golan Heights in the village of Hadar. It said there were no casualties

The 1974 agreement established a demilitarized separation zone between Israeli and Syrian forces, stationing a U.N. peacekeeping force there to maintain calm.

The agreement is credited with officially ending the 1973 Mideast war, when a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Israel is marking the 50th anniversary of the war next week, based on the Hebrew calendar.

On the same day, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the Israeli strike killed two members of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group backed by Iran, near the village of Beit Jin in southern Syria.

Islamic Jihad official Ismail Abu-Mujahed denied that any of their operatives were killed in southern Syria.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.