Israeli ground assault on site near Damascus

A Syrian state media outlet claimed Thursday that the Israeli army carried out an airborne operation Wednesday night in an area south of Damascus that it had previously bombed.

Israel, which regularly conducts airstrikes in Syria, has not confirmed this operation, but its Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said Thursday that Israeli forces are operating "day and night" wherever necessary for the country's security.

If this raid is confirmed, it would be the first of its kind near the capital since the rise to power in December of an Islamist coalition that overthrew President Bashar al-Assad.

The Israeli air force struck the site near Kesweh, about 30 kilometers south of Damascus, on Tuesday, killing six Syrian soldiers, according to the Syrian Foreign Affairs Ministry.

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On Wednesday, the site was bombed again, according to state television, then the Israeli army "carried out an airborne operation, the details of which are not yet known," the official news agency Sana reported, citing a government source.

Since December, Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes in Syria and ground incursions in the south of the country.

A Defense Ministry official told AFP on Tuesday that the site targeted by Israel housed buildings belonging to the Syrian army.

Syrian soldiers found "surveillance and listening devices" in the area on Tuesday before the Israeli strikes, according to Sana, which did not specify who had installed them.

Hezbollah weapons

"Airstrikes and drones continued to prevent access to the area until Wednesday evening," before the airborne operation, the same source said. "As we understand it, Syrian forces discovered surveillance and intelligence devices, apparently Israeli," Israeli analyst Carmit Valensi explained to AFP's Jerusalem bureau.

"Israeli forces were essentially trying to dismantle the intelligence devices that had been installed to prevent them from falling into the hands of various Syrian forces," she added.

The site housed weapons used by Lebanon's Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and allied with Assad, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), based in the United Kingdom but with an extensive network of sources in Syria.

When contacted by AFP, the Israeli army had no comment on the strikes.

"Our forces operate on all theaters of war, day and night, for Israel's security," Katz wrote Thursday, without further details, on his X account.

Israel and Syria have technically been in a state of war for decades but have begun talks under U.S. auspices since the takeover by interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, with the stated aim of reaching security arrangements.