BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on Damascus against alleged commander of Iranian Revolutionary Guards has killed 13 people, a war monitor said on Sunday while updating toll.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted by western media as saying the death toll has risen to 13 in Saturday’s strike.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed it lost five members in the Israeli strike.
The British-based monitor, which has a vast network of sources inside Syria, said the casualties include five Iranians, including three IRGC leaders, five Syrians, one Iraqi and two Lebanese.
The Syrian Observatory said the building targeted allegedly belonged to the IRGC and that the area is known to be a high-security zone.
Damascus’s Mazzeh neighbourhood also hosts United Nations headquarters and embassies.
The Israeli strike on Saturday was the second high-profile assassination in Syria in less than a month.
In December last year, an Israeli air strike killed a senior Iranian general in Syria.
Razi Moussavi was the most senior commander of the Quds Force to be killed outside Iran since a US drone strike killed IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020.
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes during more than a decade of civil war in Syria targeting Iran-backed forces and Syrian army.
The Israeli attacks have intensified since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7.
Since 2011 civil war in Syria has claimed more than half a million lives and displaced several million people.
