DAMASCUS, Syria: A Syria war monitor said explosions on Sunday rocked an area near Damascus housing weapons depots used.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the blasts in the Kisweh area, south of the Syrian capital, may be the result of an Israeli air strike.
The Israeli military, which has struck many military sites in Syria since former president Bashar al-Assad’s fall, told AFP in Jerusalem it did not attack the site.
The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources in Syria, said that “loud blasts resonated in the wider capital area”.
The explosions occurred “at ammunition depots of the armed forces… near the town of Kisweh”, sending a thick cloud of smoke billowing over the site, the Observatory said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that the blasts near Damascus may be the result of an Israeli air strike.
An AFP video journalist saw small fires burning in the blackened rubble of a flattened building on the outskirts of the town of Kisweh. Several other one-storey buildings stood undamaged nearby.
The explosions continued into Sunday evening, ringing out across surrounding areas, the journalist said.
Israel, which rarely comments on its actions in neighbouring Syria, has carried out hundreds of air strikes on military sites since opposition groups ousted Assad and seized Damascus last month.
Read Also: US Approves $8b Arms Shipment to Israel Despite Gaza Genocide
Most recently, the Observatory said Israeli warplanes hit sites of the Syrian army in the Aleppo area on Friday.
Israeli Strikes in Syria
In late December, the Observatory said 11 people died in an explosion at an arms storage facility in the Adra area northeast of Damascus, adding that it was possibly the result of an Israeli strike. Israel denied any involvement.
On December 16, Israel launched attacks on Syrian air defence systems and ammunition depots in its ongoing bid to disable the country’s military capability.
War monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said that Israel targeted military sites in Syria’s coastal Tartous region, including air defence units and “surface-to-surface missile depots”, saying the attack featured “the heaviest strikes” in the area in more than a decade.
After Assad’s fall, Israeli troops have entered a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, violating a 1974 armistice agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has also announced plans to increase the number of settlers in the Golan Heights, which it has illegally occupied since 1967.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of Syria’s new administration, has said the country is in no position to enter any conflict “because there is general exhaustion in Syria”.
Amid attacks from Israel, the new administration has been making strides with international recognition.
