Early Tuesday, the Syrian General Broadcasting Authority reported the death of TV anchor Safaa Ahmed due to Israeli aggression targeting the capital, Damascus.
Syrian activists and bloggers circulated Ahmed’s final post, where she noted hearing “strong sounds in the skies of Damascus” approximately 30 minutes before her death.
Syrian media outlets also reported casualties from the Israeli bombing targeting the villa area in Damascus. The attacks ignited a fire around the Mezzeh area following an Israeli airstrike.
The official Syrian News Agency (SANA) stated that air defenses responded to hostile targets around the capital.
Damascus-based radio “Sham FM” reported hearing successive explosions in the city, with air defenses engaging hostile targets around Damascus amidst rising smoke columns near the Mezzeh area.
Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth suggested that the attacks on Damascus were an assassination operation targeting a vehicle in the Mezzeh district, located in the southwest of the city.
Israel threatened on Monday the assassination of Maher Al-Assad, the brother of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, by targeting the headquarters of the 4th Division in the Syrian Army.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that Israeli drones, equipped with high-explosive missiles, targeted a villa used by the 4th Division near Yafour in the Damascus countryside.
The villa, frequented by leaders from Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, is under the command of Maher Al-Assad. He is considered a significant Syrian leader with close ties to Iran and Hezbollah.
According to SOHR, Maher Al-Assad received warning messages about the consequences of transferring weapons from the 4th Division’s stock to Lebanon, indicating he would become a target in Israeli strikes.
Sources confirmed that Maher Al-Assad was not present at the villa during the strike and was outside Damascus at the time.
