An Israeli airstrike that demolished a building next door to Iran’s Embassy in Syria on Monday killed two Iranian generals and five officers, according to Iranian officials.
Israel, which rarely acknowledges strikes against Iranian targets, said it had no comment on the latest attack in Syria, although a military spokesman blamed Iran for a drone attack early Monday against a naval base in southern Israel.
Early on Tuesday, the Israeli military said some kind of weapon fired from Syria toward Israel crashed before reaching its intended target.
Israel has grown increasingly impatient with the daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, which have escalated in recent days, and warned of the possibility of a full-fledged war. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have also been launching long-range missiles toward Israel, including on Monday.
The airstrike in Syria killed Gen. Ali Reza Zahdi (also spelt Reza Zahedi), who led the elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016, according to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It also killed Zahdi’s deputy, Gen. Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi, and five other officers.
A member of Hezbollah, Hussein Youssef, also was killed in the attack, a spokesperson for the militant group told The Associated Press. The spokesperson spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the group’s rules; Hezbollah has not publicly announced the death.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain, said two Syrians were killed in that attack.
Two police officers who were guarding the annex building were among those wounded, and first responders were still searching for bodies under the rubble.
Iran’s ambassador, Hossein Akbari, vowed revenge for the strike “at the same magnitude and harshness.”
Israel has carried out scores of Iranian-linked targets in Syria over the years, many of them believed to be aimed at disrupting arms transfers and other cooperation with Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
An Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood in December killed a longtime IRGC adviser to Syria, Seyed Razi Mousavi.
A similar strike on a building in Damascus in January killed at least five Iranian advisers. Last week, an Iranian adviser was killed in airstrikes over the eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour, near the Iraqi border.
The chief spokesman for Israel’s army, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said a Monday drone attack on a naval base in southern Israel was “directed by Iran” and caused no injuries.
