Rescue workers search in the rubble of a building annexed to the Iranian embassy a day after an air strike in Damascus on April 2, 2024. Iran warned arch-foe Israel on April 2 that it will punish an air strike that killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals, at its consular annex in Damascus. (Credit: Louai Beshara/AFP)
Monday marked an escalation in regional tension, following several strikes blamed on Israel that targeted the consular annex of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus. The strikes killed eleven people, including the two senior Quds Force commanders Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi and five other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members.
"The Israeli enemy launched air strikes from the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting the Iranian consulate in Damascus," the Syrian Defense Ministry had said. An AFP journalist noted that the consular section, which adjoins the Iranian embassy in the Mazzeh district of Damascus and houses numerous embassies and United Nations buildings, had been completely destroyed. "All those inside were killed or wounded," the ministry continued.
The IRGC, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, announced that seven of its members had been killed in the strike. In a statement, it confirmed that two senior members of the Quds Force, Zahedi and Rahimi, were among the victims.
The Quds Force is the IRGC's elite unit that operates outside Iranian borders. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), General Zahedi was the "Quds Force commander for Syria, Lebanon and Palestine." Hezbollah, in its own statement, announced the death of one of its members, Hussein Rida Youssef, who, according to L'Orient-Le Jour's correspondent in South Lebanon, was killed in the strikes in Damascus.
Israel, as usual, declined to comment on the strike. But Iran and Hezbollah have accused Israel and threatened reprisals. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Tuesday that the strikes "would not go unanswered." At the same time, Teheran announced that it had sent "an important message" to the United States following the Israeli strikes, according to AFP. The message, the content of which was not disclosed, was sent to "an official of the Swiss embassy," which represents American interests in Iran, after he was summoned to the foreign ministry, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said. In another message, the Iranian mission to the United Nations called for "an urgent meeting" of the Security Council to "condemn in the strongest possible terms this unjustified criminal act and terrorist attack perpetrated by the Israeli regime."
Syria's foreign minister, Faisal Mokdad, affirmed that relations between Syria and Iran "will not be affected' by these strikes," according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA).
Dangerous escalation
This attack has raised fears of an escalation in tensions between Israel and its enemies in the region, notably Iran and Hezbollah, against the backdrop of the war in Gaza. These developments have prompted the Lebanese government and several Lebanese political figures close to the Syrian government and Iran to react, while those who are opposed to Hezbollah have remained silent.
Hezbollah, an ally of Teheran that has been fighting Israel since Oct. 8, the day after the Gaza war began, warned on Tuesday that Israel would be "punished." "This crime will not pass without the enemy being punished," the party said in a statement, hinting at a "vengeance" to come.
On a governmental level, Lebanon's foreign ministry issued a statement condemning "the Israeli aggression against the Iranian consulate in Damascus," stressing that "targeting diplomatic representations and missions constitutes a violation of international law." The ministry went on to add that "this dangerous escalation ... undeniably threatens regional and international peace and security."
On the political front, Marada leader Sleiman Frangieh, a Hezbollah ally and close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, condemned "Israeli aggression" in a post on X, calling it "a violation of all diplomatic and international laws and immunities."
Pro-Syrian government Druze leader and former MP and minister Talal Arslan said that "if an attack by any party against a diplomatic representation had taken place in the world, heaven and earth would have been moved and there would have been declarations condemning infringements of immunities and red lines." "But when the Zionist enemy commits such a crime and targets Iran's diplomatic representation in Syria, silence becomes the order of the day, and it is considered an act that is part of the ongoing war," he denounced. "Through this crime, the enemy wanted to overstep red lines and violate international law in order to show that it doesn't care about the whole world," stated Arslan.
Several countries, including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, have condemned the strikes against the Iranian consular annex in Damascus.
The Tawhid party of Druze leader Wiam Wahab, also close to the Syrian government and Hezbollah, described the strikes in Damascus as "flagrant aggression against Syrian territory and a clear breach of international law and diplomatic immunity." Denouncing the attack as "Nazi," the party called on the UN Security Council to "react effectively to dissuade the occupation and its criminal leaders from their offensive in Gaza and the region."
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.