DUBAI: An Israeli attack on Syria’s historic city of Palmyra killed 36 people and wounded more than 50 on Wednesday after it hit residential buildings and an industrial zone, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported. The Syrian defence ministry also confirmed the incident.

The Israeli military declined to comment when asked about the attack.

“At approximately 1:30pm today, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of the al-Tanf area, targeting a number of buildings in the city of Palmyra in the Syrian desert, which led to the martyrdom of 36 people (and) the injury of more than 50 others,” SANA said, quoting a military official. It added that the attack also caused significant damage to the targeted buildings and surrounding area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli strikes killed 41 people, many of them pro-Iran fighters from neighbouring Iraq. “Forty-one people have been killed, including seven pro-Iranian Syrian fighters and 22 non-Syrians, mostly Tehran-backed Iraqi members of the Al-Nujaba Brigades,” the Britain-based war monitor said.

Strike targeted residential buildings and industrial area

The Israeli military said last week it had attacked transit routes on the Syrian-Lebanese border that were used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah. Syrian state media reported several Israeli attacks last week in the vicinity of Homs province, which borders Lebanon. Palmyra is located in Homs.

Palmyra’s ancient city is a Unesco World Heritage site. It was seized by Islamic State fighters in 2015 and partially destroyed before it was recaptured by the Syrian army.

Massacre

Israel has been carrying out strikes against targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the Oct 7, 2023 Israel-Hamas escalated tensions.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country. Syria has sought to stay out of the Israel-Hamas conflict, whose fallout has raised fears of a broader regional war.

Israel has ramped up strikes on Syria recently, including in areas near the Lebanese border mainly targeting bastions of Hezbollah. Israel has been at war with the Lebanese group since September.

The US, earlier this month, unveiled sanctions against 26 people, firms and ships allegedly associated with a Syrian conglomerate making hundreds of millions of dollars selling oil on behalf of Iran and its proxies.

The US Treasury Department said in a statement that its designations were related to the Al-Qatirji Company, which it accuses of generating vast revenues for the Houthis and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) — the IRGC’s foreign operations.

In early September, Israeli strikes killed 18 people overnight in central Hama province. In late August, several pro-Iranian fighters were killed in Syria’s central Homs region in strikes attributed to Israel, the Observatory had said. Days later, the Israeli military said it killed an unspecified number of fighters belonging to the Hamas ally Islamic Jihad in a strike in Syria near the Lebanese border.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2024