Iranian adviser to the Revolutionary Guards in Damascus killed today in Israeli missile strike which targeted a southern area of ​​the Syrian capital, semi-official Iranian websites and Iran’s Mehr news agency reported, while a non-governmental organization announced that at least 3 pro-Iranian fighters were killed in an Israeli raid and that a facility belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah was targeted.

Earlier, the Syrian state news agency SANA had reported citing a Syrian military source that the country’s military shot down a number of Israeli rockets which were launched from the Golan Heights in southern Damascus.

Iranian news websites named the dead man as Said Alidadi, without specifying his rank in the Revolutionary Guards, an elite body of the Iranian army.

Iran’s Mehr news agency also reported that “one of the advisers of the Revolutionary Guards, Saeed Alidadi, was martyred by losing his life” in the strike.

At least 3 pro-Iranian fighters were killed this morning in an Israeli strike in Syria, the second this week on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, the non-governmental organization Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced at the same time.

A Syrian military source cited by official media said for its part that “the Israeli enemy carried out an airstrike on several positions in southern Damascus at around 04:20 local time (03:30 Greek time)”, without specifying whether there were any casualties. .

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “at least three fighters of pro-Iranian groups linked to the regime, including an Iranian and an Iraqi, were killed” in the strike, which targeted “an area belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah” in the southern part of Damascus.

The Observatory, which is based in Britain and has a wide network of sources in war-torn Syria, said the site targeted was “on the artery leading to Sayeda Zeinab”, a Shiite holy site.

According to the NGO, another position was also targeted, on the Damascus International Airport road, also in the southern part of the Syrian capital, which had been evacuated by pro-Iranian fighters.

Asked about the strikes, the Israeli military said it does not comment on foreign media reports.

Israel has for years carried out attacks on what it describes as pro-Iranian targets in Syria, where Tehran’s influence has grown since it began supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war that broke out in 2011.

After the October 7 attack on Israel by militants of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Israel escalated its strikes on targets Iranian-backed militias in Syria and has also hit the Syrian army’s air defenses and some Syrian forces.

On Monday, eight people were killed in an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guards base in the same area, according to the Observatory.

The Sayedah Zeinab compound, an important Shiite pilgrimage site, has been guarded since the 2011 war in Syria by pro-Iranian Hezbollah militias, along with the Damascus army.

Bases of Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards have been established in this district, according to the MCO.

Since late December, two more strikes have targeted Iranian targets in Syria amid a tense regional context over the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The US also threatened retaliation against pro-Iranian groups operating in Syria and Iraq after a drone attack on Sunday killed three US soldiers in Jordan, near the border with Syria and Iraq.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed today that his country would give a “resounding response” to anyone who tried to intimidate it, but stressed at the same time that Iran would not start a war in the region.