This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency on July 2, 2022, shows men assessing the damage caused to a building by an Israeli airstrike in the western Syrian coastal city of Tartus. (Via AFP)
United Nations, July 23 (RHC)-- Iran says the international community, particularly the United Nations Security Council, must fulfill their responsibility and put an end to the Israeli regime's constant crimes and dangerous approaches to Syria.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kana'ani on Friday censured a brutal missile attack by the Israeli regime targeting the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, earlier in the day.
"The Zionist regime's continuous aggression and attacks on Syria are a clear violation of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity and a flagrant violation of recognized international principles and regulations," the Iranian spokesman said.
He slammed "questionable silence" of responsible circles and organizations as well as those who claim to defend human rights over the Israeli regime's illegal measures against Syria and expressed his sympathy with the Arab country's government and nation, particularly the bereaved families of the latest attack on Damascus.
"The repeated attacks of the Zionist regime on Syria are a breach of this country's sovereignty and territorial integrity and will help armed terrorists and maintain and strengthen their presence in Syria, which actually threatens security of the region," Kana'ani said.
Syria's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday that at least three Syrian soldiers were killed and seven more wounded in the Israeli strike targeting the outskirts of Damascus.
"The Israeli enemy carried out an air strike... from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, " the ministry said, adding Syria’s air defense had managed to intercept some of the incoming projectiles.
Syria and the Israeli regime are technically at war due to the latter’s 1967-to-present occupation of the Arab country’s Golan Heights. Israel maintains a significant military presence in the territory, which it uses as one of its launchpads for attacks against the Syrian soil.
The regime's attacks on Syria started to grow significantly in scale and frequency after 2011, when Syria found itself in the grip of rampant foreign-backed militancy and terrorism.
Syria's Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry said the country reserves the right to respond by appropriate means recognized by international law and the Charter of the United Nations to repeated Israeli aggression.
In two identical letters to the UN secretary general and the president of the Security Council, the ministry confirmed the Israeli criminal acts of aggression using bursts of missiles from direction of occupied Syrian Golan targeting some points in the vicinity of Damascus, Syria's official news agency SANA reported.
The ministry urged the UN and the Security Council to exercise their responsibilities under the United Nations Charter and condemn such Israeli aggression. It said the Security Council’s refusal to take the necessary measures to prevent and condemn the Israeli regime's repeated attacks shows the world body's inability to assume its responsibilities and its failure to achieve the minimum implementation of its duties in maintaining peace and security in the region and across the world.
It emphasized that the Israeli attacks cannot be separated from the U.S. aggression and violations of the principles of international law, the occupation of northeast Syria, looting of oil and supplement of weapons to the terrorists hired by Washington in order to impede the political settlement and restoration of security and stability to Syria.
According to the ministry, these attacks are carried out in direct support of the armed terrorist organizations that spread murder across Syria. The Israeli regime, along with the United States and their other Western and regional partners, has been a staunch supporter of the terror groups that have been operating against the Damascus government.