An Israeli missile strike aimed at Iranian and Hezbollah targets early Sunday killed 15 people and destroyed a building in a Damascus neighbourhood home to much of Syria's security apparatus, a war monitor said.
The 15 civilians, including two women, were among those killed in "the deadliest Israeli attack in the Syrian capital" since the civil war began, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation.
The statement added that the strike hit close to an Iranian cultural centre and it was "Israeli missiles (that) targeted sites including Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah".
The overnight strike cratered a road and destroyed the adjacent 10-storey building in the Kafr Sousa district, which is home to senior state officials and Syrian intelligence headquarters.
Footage posted by state media showed that a 10-storey building was badly damaged in the attack, crushing the structure of its lower floors.
Large chunks of the building had been thrown into the street below, which was strewn with cladding and metal fittings.
The images showed several of the building's windows had been blown out.
During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes against its neighbour, primarily targeting positions of the country's army, Iranian forces and Hezbollah, allies of the Damascus regime. But it rarely hits residential areas of the capital.
It was not immediately clear who was the intended target of the strike, which AFP correspondents reported shook Damascus and left a gaping hole in the street.
Other missiles overnight hit a warehouse used by pro-regime Iranian and Hezbollah fighters near Damascus, said the Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.
"At 00:22 am, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights targeting several areas in Damascus and its vicinity, including residential neighbourhoods," Syria's defence ministry said in a statement.
In a preliminary toll, it said the strike killed five people, among them a soldier, and injured 15 civilians, some in a critical condition.
Iranian news agency Tasnim said "no Iranian was harmed", adding that the strikes hit "exactly the spot" where Hezbollah's top commander Imad Mughniyeh was killed in a 2008 car bombing that the Lebanese Shiite group blamed on Israel.
Israel's military rarely comments on its strikes against Syria, but regularly asserts that it will not let Iran extend its influence to Israel's borders.
The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad receives military support from Tehran and its allied armed Shiite groups including Hezbollah, which are declared enemies of Israel.
Footage posted by state media showed that a 10-storey building was badly damaged in the attack, crushing the structure of its lower floors.
Large chunks of the building had been thrown into the street below, which was strewn with cladding and metal fittings.
The images showed several of the building's windows had been blown out.
The attack comes more than a month after an Israeli missile strike hit Damascus International Airport, killing four people - including two soldiers.
The 2 January strike hit "positions for Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups inside the airport and its surroundings, including a weapons warehouse", the Observatory said at the time.
At the end of last year, the head of the Israel Defence Forces Operations Directorate, Major General Oded Basiuk, presented the military's "operational outlook" for 2023, saying that the force "will not accept Hezbollah 2.0 in Syria".
The conflict in Syria started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful protests, and escalated to pull in foreign powers and global jihadists.
Nearly half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced around half of the country's pre-war population from their homes.
The Damascus government is currently seeking to recover from the 6 February earthquake, which did not affect the capital but which has killed more than 43,000 people in the country's north as well as southern Turkey.
