JEDDAH: Ten people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday on Hezbollah targets in the central Syrian city of Homs.
The strikes completely leveled a building in one of the city’s most affluent districts, and also hit other targets linked to Iran-backed groups.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, Rami Abdel Rahman, said the dead included six civilians and two Hezbollah fighters. Syrian state television aired footage of rescue teams searching the rubble of a collapsed building for survivors.
Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syria since civil war broke out in 2011. It has stepped up its campaign against Iran-backed forces in Syria since its war in Gaza began on Oct. 7.
The US also carried out airstrikes last week on Iran-backed groups in Syria and Iraq, killing 45 people in retaliation for a drone attack that killed three US soldiers in Jordan.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has said repeatedly that it will not allow Iran to expand its presence.
Elsewhere, three drug smugglers were killed and a Jordanian frontier guard was injured in clashes along Jordan’s border with Syria. Since the start of the year Jordan has stepped up airstrikes inside Syrian territory along the border against farms and hideouts of drug smugglers.
Clashes have erupted with hundreds of drug dealers Jordan says have direct links to pro-Iranian militias carrying narcotics over its border from Syria, along with arms and explosives.
Jordan’s government says Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group and other pro-Tehran militias who control much of southern Syria are behind the surge in drug and weapons smuggling. Iran and Hezbollah saythe accusations are part of a Western plot.
