The Syrian military’s air defenses have repelled an Israeli attack with missiles near the capital Damascus, shooting down most of the missiles.

A military source told the country’s state news agency “the Israeli enemy carried out an air aggression from southeast Beirut, targeting some points in the vicinity of the city of Damascus”. 

Syrian media say most of the missiles have been brought down and only material damage has been incurred. It follows a similar incident last month when Syria’s air defenses shot down Israeli with missiles also coming from the direction of Lebanon, targeting the capital Damascus and the city of Homs. 

At the time, the Russian military said “the Syrian air defense destroyed 22 of the 24 missiles using Russian-made Buk-M2E and Pantsir-S systems... There were no casualties among the Syrian military personnel or destruction of infrastructure”.
The violation of Syria’s sovereignty and Lebanese airspace has prompted complaints by both countries to the United Nations. 

Israel has launched hundreds of aerial attacks against Syria, violating the Lebanese and Syrian sovereignty. According to the Secretary-General of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the aim of the attacks are to assist foreign-backed terrorists in Syria, slow down the Syrian army’s liberation of the country from militants and prevent the flow of advanced weapons to Lebanon. 

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah says Israel has failed on all three fronts. 

Meanwhile, the Syrian Foreign Ministry has called on the international humanitarian community to pressure Israeli authorities to end the regime’s violations of Syrian nationals in the occupied Golan. Damascus also called for the immediate return of Syrian to towns occupied by Israel. 

In a statement, the ministry said “the Syrian permanent mission, at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sent letters to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, demanding to exert pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities to stop their illegitimate practices against the Syrian citizens in Golan and to guarantee its compliance with its international legal obligations under the Geneva Conventions.” 

Analysts have praised Syria’s diplomatic approach towards the Israeli occupation. They say it will be difficult to blame Syria in the future should Damascus take any potential military approach towards Israel as it exhausted all diplomatic options with the international community.