Several reportedly killed in alleged Israeli strike near Damascus

An alleged Israeli airstrike near Damascus hit a weapons warehouse and killed several people according to Arab-language media outlets Sunday.

Reports said there was an explosion in the city of Adra, on the eastern outskirts of the capital.

A drone was said to have fired two missiles at the warehouse located in a commercial area.

Initial media reports said that at least two people were killed, though that was not the final toll.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 11 people were killed, mostly civilians. It said there was a blast at a weapons depot belonging to the former Syrian regime and that it was “likely resulting from an Israeli attack.”

According to the Observatory, Syrian locals in areas where there are weapons warehouses sometimes arrange for the contents to be blown up to prevent an Israeli airstrike that could kill people in the area. However, according to the observatory, it was not previously known that there was a weapons warehouse in the Adra area where the explosion happened.

SOHR, run by a single person, has regularly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting and inflating casualty numbers as well as inventing them wholesale.

There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the alleged strike.

An unconfirmed video shared on social media purported to show the aftermath of the attack. The video showed a building reduced to rubble with several bodies scattered among the debris.

Earlier in December, after the rebels took control of Damascus in a lightning offensive, Israel launched a major operation to destroy Syria’s strategic military capabilities, including chemical weapons sites, missiles, air defenses, air force, and navy targets, in a bid to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile elements.

In a move that drew some international condemnation, Israel also entered a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.

Israel has said it will not become involved in the conflict in Syria and that its seizure of the buffer zone established in 1974 was a defensive move and a temporary one until it can guarantee security along the frontier.

Israel has also signaled its desire to have “correct ties” with the new regime, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in early December.

Syria’s new de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Julani, has said that his new regime is “committed to the 1974 agreement and we are prepared to return the UN [monitors],” referring to peacekeeping forces that manned the demilitarized zone alongside Syrian troops. He has also said he does not want conflict with Israel.

Israel and Syria do not have diplomatic relations and have formally been in a perpetual state of war since Israel declared independence in 1948.

While the fall of the Assad regime, which stood for over five decades, could provide a historic opportunity for recognition between Israel and its neighbor, the potential power vacuum in Syria could also lead to further chaos and serve as a breeding ground for a resurgence of terror in the region.