FLASH
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Israel attacked a neighborhood west of Damascus and on the outskirts of the capital, killing 15 people and wounding 16 others.
The SANA news agency said airstrikes in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus and the capital's northwest suburbs hit two buildings.
The Associated Press reported from the scene in Mazzeh that a five-story building was damaged after being hit by a rocket.
The Israeli military said it struck command centers and infrastructure targets of the militant group, Islamic Jihad, in Syria and caused "extensive damage to the terrorist organization's command center and its operatives."
The airstrikes in Damascus and its suburbs came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, was expected to meet in the Syrian capital with representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh.
The Israeli military said Islamic Jihad had participated, alongside Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip, in the October 7, 2023 attacks in southern Israel that sparked the current Middle East war.
Hamas is declared a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
The army said it "will continue to act against the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization wherever necessary".
An official of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group said the attack in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices and that several members of the group were killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Syria's state news agency SANA said the country's air defenses were activated against a "hostile target" south of the central city of Homs. She did not provide further details.
Tehran has been the main supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government since an uprising in 2011 turned into full-scale civil war and has played a decisive role in turning the tide in its favor.
Iran has sent dozens of military advisers and thousands of Tehran-backed fighters from across the Middle East to Syria to fight on Assad's side.
Tehran has also been an economic source for Assad, helping him with billions of dollars worth of fuel and loans.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of Hezbollah and officials of Iran-backed groups.
Hezbollah, which controls southern Lebanon, has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union has blacklisted its armed wing, but not its political party./REL
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