Israel Hits Iranian Arms Depot in Syria, Wounds Senior Hezbollah Leaders

Responding to fire from Syria, the IDF reportedly damaged an Iranian arms depot near Damascus and wounded three soldiers as well as a group of senior Hezbollah leaders heading for Tehran.

By AP and United with Israel Staff

Israeli warplanes flying over Lebanon fired missiles south of the Syrian capital of Damascus late Tuesday, reportedly hitting an arms depot and wounding three soldiers, Syrian state media reported.

The attack came in response to a missile fired from Syria, an IDF spokesperson said late Tuesday evening.

According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, the arms depots were serving the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror group and Iranian forces.

Newsweek reported that a group of senior leaders of Iranian proxy Hezbollah were injured during the airstrike just minutes after boarding a plane to Tehran.

The reported attack near Damascus is the first since President Donald Trump announced last week that the U.S. will withdraw all of its 2,000 forces in Syria, a move that will leave control of the oil-rich eastern third of Syria up for grabs.

Following Trump’s announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will “continue to act against Iran’s attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there.”

The IDF did not confirm the raids, but a spokesperson said in a statement that “an aerial defense system was activated against an anti-aircraft missile launched from Syria.” There were no injuries on the Israeli side, the spokesperson added.

Israel is widely believed to have been behind a series of airstrikes in the past that mainly targeted Iranian and Hezbollah forces fighting alongside the government in Syria. Tuesday’s attack is the first since a missile assault on the southern outskirts of Damascus on Nov. 29.

Russia announced that it had delivered the S-300 air-defense system to Syria in October. That followed the Sept. 17 downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli airstrike, a friendly fire incident that stoked regional tensions.