Syrian Air Defenses Respond to Israeli Aggression Targeting Port City (+Video)


Syrian Air Defenses Respond to Israeli Aggression Targeting Port City (+Video)

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Syrian air defenses were activated after the country’s principal port city of Lattakia came under Israeli missile attack, Syria’s state media reported.

The attack took place at 3:21am local time (01:21 GMT) on Tuesday, with rockets being launched from the “depth of the Mediterranean”, the SANA news agency reported, adding that that attack sparked a major fire and resulted in significant damage to the port.

Footages posted on social media show a series of blasts rocking the port. Also flames can be seen engulfing Lattakia and lighting up the night sky.

 

 

The port sustained “great” material damage as a result of the strike, and “a number of containers” were burned to the ground, SANA reported.

There have been no reports of casualties.

The airstrike comes exactly three weeks after the port was subject to a similar attack, for which Damascus also blamed Tel Aviv.

At that time, several missiles hit the port in an overnight raid, igniting a fire in the container area.

The Lattakia province is also home to a major Russian military facility, the Khmeimim Airbase, located some 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) southeast of the provincial capital.

The missile attack comes as tensions between Damascus and the Tel Aviv regime run high.

Earlier on Monday, the Syrian government has sharply denounced an Israeli plan to double the population of Jewish settlers in the occupied Golan Heights – captured from Damascus in 1967 – and argued that the move is fomenting tensions.

In a statement, the Syrian Foreign Ministry rejected the latest Jewish settlement expansion plan, arguing it was a violation of international law.

“The government of the Syrian Arab Republic strongly condemns the unprecedented dangerous escalation by the Israeli occupation authorities in the occupied Syrian Golan, and their persistence in settlement practices and massive and systematic violations that amount to war crimes,” the ministry said, accusing Tel Aviv of “confiscation of land and property” and the “theft of natural resources” in the occupied region.

The Israeli regime approved the $317 million settlement plan over the weekend, aiming to double the number of settlers in the Golan Heights over the next five years with investments in housing and infrastructure. Officials hope to encourage around 23,000 new residents into the area, which Israel has occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967, during which it also captured Gaza, the West Bank, and parts of the Sinai Peninsula.

In an interview with local media on Monday, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad insisted on his country’s right to the “entire occupied Golan,” and argued that Syrian sovereignty there was “not subject to negotiation or concession.”

“All the measures taken by ‘Israel’ – the occupying power – to change (the Golan Heights’) natural and demographic features or impose its jurisdiction over it are null and void,” the FM said, adding that Israel had no authority under international law, and citing a 1981 United Nations Security Council Resolution that called on Tel Aviv to rescind its claim to the territory.

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