The Israeli Air Force launched dozens of strikes targeting military and ammunition facilities across Syria, as Syria’s de facto leader warned against an invasion but added that the country did not want a new conflict. carried out.
“More than 60 Israeli airstrikes have been carried out in the past 12 hours,” said Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from the Syrian capital Damascus, adding that since the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Israel, Israel has carried out approximately It added that it had carried out 800 air raids. -Assad last week.
“We heard several loud explosions, which are almost routine here. The focus of Israeli airstrikes is Damascus and its suburbs,” Serdar said, adding that ammunition depots and air defense systems in the Damascus area were hit. admitted that it had been done.
“This was part of Israel’s strategy since the fall of the al-Assad regime to leave the country without air defense against attacks,” Serdar said.
Israeli forces also destroyed roads, power lines and water networks in the southeastern Quneitra region after people failed to comply with evacuation orders, Al Jazeera’s Muntashir Abu Nabout said.
“Israeli tanks are currently stationed in towns and villages in southwestern Syria as Israeli forces expand their occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights,” Nabout news agency reported from Quneitra.
Over the weekend, Israeli forces entered a United Nations patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights, an act the United Nations says is a violation of the 1974 Armistice Agreement.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Israel fired 61 missiles at Syrian military positions within five hours of the night, including military warehouses and air defense facilities in Homs, Dera’a, Suwaydah and the Qaramoun Mountains near Damascus. announced that it had attacked. At Hama Airport.
SOHR also released footage of what it said was an Israeli attack on a military camp in the town of Ain Muneen, near Damascus.
Ahmed al-Sharah, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and de facto head of Syria’s new regime, has said that Israelis can no longer justify their recent actions in Syria, but He added that his country is in no position to be drawn into a new conflict.
“Israelis have clearly crossed the line of disarmament in Syria, and there is a risk of a new unwarranted escalation in the region,” Foreign Minister Al-Shara said, adding that despite the violations, “years of war… “We will not allow this to happen, as Syria as a whole is exhausted after the conflict.” This is to enter into a new conflict. ”
“The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability,” he added.
“There are no weapons outside the authority of the Syrian state,” he declared to reporters in Damascus, and also promised to disband all factions in Syria.
Meanwhile, the United States announced on Saturday that it had had contact with HTS, despite having designated the group as a “terrorist” in 2018.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters: “We are in contact with HTS and other parties,” but did not elaborate on the circumstances of the contact.
Blinken and other diplomats from Arab countries and Turkiye held talks on Syria on Saturday in Aqaba, Jordan.
In a joint statement, they called for a Syrian-led transition that respects human rights and “creates an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process.”
Rob Geist-Pinfold, lecturer in peace and security at Durham University, said there had been a “disconnect” between Israel and the United States since the Israeli attacks began. He said Israel is attacking Syria “simply because it can.”
“They don’t know about the new government or who is on the other side,” he told Al Jazeera. “Israelis are making the mistake of being cautious here. The problem is that they will also escalate.”
Pinfold said the fact that Syria’s new rulers say they have no intention of fighting Israel is “a big change because Syria is a core state that has been fighting Israel for decades.” .
