Israeli Strikes on Syria: From Attacking Key Figures to Targeting Civilians

The Israeli ongoing attacks on Syria reflect residents’ fears of objectives beyond the assassination of figures from the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance.”

Since September 2024, Israeli airstrikes on Damascus and its suburbs have relentlessly struck residential buildings, leaving a growing trail of civilian deaths.

Recent strikes finally revealed that “Israel” deliberately targets apartments shortly after the intended individual enters, creating a sense of insecurity among Damascus residents.

Intensified Strikes

On November 14, 2024, Israeli airstrikes targeted several areas in Damascus, including Mezzeh-West Villas, Qudsaya, and Sayyidah Zaynab, resulting in 15 fatalities and the destruction of three buildings.

Syrians mourned a mother and her two children—Wa’ad Shkhashiro and her sons Yazan and Jude al-Azaat—killed in Mezzeh, where seven Syrian civilians were among the innocents killed by “Israel.”

The Israeli Occupation forces claimed the strikes targeted Islamic Jihad sites, though local reports revealed they hit civilian areas housing Syrian families.

Since September 2024, Israeli airstrikes on Damascus have become nearly daily.

On October 9, 2024, strikes on Building 14 in Mezzeh killed nine people, including a Syrian doctor and a mother with her child. The main target was Hajj Ziad, a Hezbollah commander.

Ziad, a Hezbollah liaison officer operating outside Lebanon, was killed hours after arriving at an apartment in the targeted building. The second-floor apartment he was occupying was destroyed in the Israeli attack.

Since the onset of Operation al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, local Syrian sources have reported approximately 50 civilian deaths, including women and children, as a result of Israeli airstrikes targeting areas near their locations.

The figures also indicate the deaths of more than 130 members of the regime forces and Iranian-backed local Syrian militias due to Israeli strikes on their positions and affiliates in Syria since September 2024.

Non-Syrian fatalities, including Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah members, and foreign militia fighters, have exceeded 200 since October 2023.

The Israeli attacks in the capital focus on the Sayyidah Zaynab district, the upscale Mezzeh area, and the neighboring Kafr Sousa, which house security zones that were previously highly protected due to the presence of key institutions and residences of senior figures.

Israeli attacks have also targeted the Eastern and Western Villas area in Damascus, which includes security branches and facilities linked to external factions such as Palestinian factions, Iranian interests, and Hezbollah.

These areas also host homes of high-ranking Syrian regime officers and security personnel, their families, ministers, foreign diplomats, and influential or sensitive figures.

Towns in the Damascus countryside and sites along the Syrian-Lebanese border are also subject to Israeli bombardment.

These strikes, which often result in casualties among non-Syrian individuals, cause significant material damage to private properties and the targeted and neighboring buildings.

Target List

“Israel has multiple objectives in Syria, including targeting Iran's manpower, weapons, and military equipment, as well as command-and-control points in the country,” retired Brigadier General Abdullah al-Asaad, head of Rasd Center for Strategic Studies, told Al-Estiklal.

“Israel focuses on assassinating leaders connected to their counterparts in southern Lebanon and even Gaza, Palestine.”

Al-Asaad said “Israel” seeks to cut off Lebanon’s internal leadership from its external support network, which funnels military and logistical aid through Syria.

The military expert also explained that Damascus hosts command-and-control centers that serve as critical links between Hezbollah and Iran, directly coordinating human, material, and military support operations.

“These figures occupy residential buildings in Damascus and nearby areas, with the full knowledge and protection of Syrian regime intelligence,” he added.

According to al-Asaad, the Israeli Occupation’s detailed knowledge of their whereabouts in civilian areas can only be attributed to intelligence from agents, likely within Bashar al-Assad’s security apparatus.

“Israel’s targeting of Syrian civilians in buildings housing non-Syrian figures stems from the complexity of such attacks, which preclude issuing evacuation warnings.”

“The responsibility lies with the Assad regime, which placed foreign military figures among residential buildings and allowed them to carry out their activities without considering the security risks to civilians. This would later lead to expanded targeting under various Israeli pretexts,” the general concluded.

A Blind Regime!

The al-Assad regime's suspicious silence in the face of Israeli attacks on Syrian civilians fuels fears that the target list is widening, threatening to exhaust Damascus with ongoing strikes.

Israeli airstrikes are now deliberately hitting Syrian civilians and their homes, intensifying the devastation that began with the Assad regime's brutal crackdown on the revolution in 2011.

“Israel” has expanded its attacks under the pretext of targeting Iran and its proxies in Syria, creating real fear among residents in targeted areas about why the Assad regime continues to allow these incursions.

The infiltration of non-Syrian military figures into Syrian civilian homes in the capital and beyond has been growing since the Iranian intervention in 2012, particularly involving the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.

For many in Damascus, it has become nearly impossible to discern the identities of residents in large apartment buildings.

Some residents have begun responding with dark humor when hearing a non-Syrian accent in a neighboring apartment, sensing they are under constant Israeli threat.