Israeli strike on Damascus kills Iranian Guards official, source says

An Israeli missile strike on Syria’s capital Damascus on Saturday killed a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and wounded others, a security source in the regional pro-Syria alliance said.

Syrian state media said a likely Israeli attack had targeted a building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus, without giving further details. Other local media in Syria reported explosions heard across the Syrian capital.

The security source, part of a network of groups close to Syria’s government and its major ally Iran, said the multi-story building was used by Iranian advisers supporting President Bashar al-Assad’s government, and that it was entirely flattened by “precision-targeted Israeli missiles.”

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Essam Al-Amin, head of the Al-Mowasat Hospital in Damascus, told local Syrian outlet Al-Watan Online that his hospital had received one corpse and three wounded people, including a woman, following Saturday’s attack.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said that no members of their group were wounded in the strike, following reports that some were at the bombed-out building.

Israel has long pursued a bombing campaign against Iran-linked targets in Syria. But it has shifted to deadlier strikes in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by militants of the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza.

In December, an Israeli strike killed two Guards members, and another on Dec. 25 killed a senior adviser to the Guards who was overseeing military coordination between Syria and Iran.