Smoke billows above buildings after an Israeli strike on the outskirts of Damascus on November 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP)

Damascus, February 2 (RHC)-- Syria says its air defenses have confronted an Israeli missile attack over the capital Damascus, in the latest act of aggression by Tel Aviv against the Arab country. 

Syria's state news agency SANA quoted a Syrian military source as saying that the country's military had intercepted a number of Israeli missiles targeting southern Damascus.  The military source said the attack was launched at 04:20 am local time from the occupied Golan Heights.  “Our air defenses confronted the hostile missiles and downed some of them,” the source said, noting that only material damage was caused.

On Monday, Syrian media said the Israeli regime had launched a missile attack on an area near the Sayeda Zeinab shrine in a southern suburb of Damascus.  That attacks come as Israel continues its brutal ground and air aggression against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Iranian military advisors have been assassinated in the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood by Israeli airstrikes in recent weeks.  Syrian sources said the Monday attack was a failed attempt by the Israeli regime to assassinate more members of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in that area.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to Tel Aviv's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.