Iran has strongly condemned the latest string of Israeli aerial and ground attacks on civilian, scientific and research facilities besides a number of military sites across Syria, stressing the need to protect the Arab nation’s territorial integrity.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei, in a statement released on Thursday, vehemently denounced the Israeli assaults in the Syrian capital Damascus, the central provinces of Hama and Homs, and the southwestern province of Dara'a.
He said the Zionist regime’s recurrent acts of aggression, strikes on Syria’s most valuable defense assets and civilian installations, alongside the occupation of strategic areas of the Arab country since the fall of the former government of Bashar al-Assad devolve responsibility to all concerned parties in order to prevent Israel’s abuses and atrocities.
The senior Iranian diplomat said the Islamic Republic, in the course of consultations with regional countries over the past few months, had been warning against the Zionist regime’s abuse of the status quo in Syria, the expansion of Israeli occupation, and its belligerence against Syria and other regional countries.
“As before, the Islamic Republic of Iran stresses the need to maintain and protect the territorial integrity, dignity and national sovereignty of Syria as a deep-rooted and dignity-seeking nation in the important region of West Asia,” Baghaei said.
The Iranian spokesman finally urged the international community, particularly regional states and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to take immediate and effective measures to stop Israel’s acts of aggression, end the regime’s impunity, and hold it accountable for egregious breaches of the law, constant acts of aggression against regional countries and ongoing genocidal crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Nine civilians were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli airstrike that targeted Syria's southwestern Dara’a province late on Wednesday.
The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said the strike hit the Jubailiyah Forest area between the cities of Nawa and Tasil.
It also reported heightened public anger and widespread mobilization in response to the "massacre," as Israeli forces penetrated deeper than ever before into Syrian territory.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli military aircraft targeted the vicinity of the scientific research center in the Barzeh neighborhood of Syria’s capital Damascus, as well as the airport in the central city of Hama.
Since the collapse of Assad’s government, the Israeli military has been launching airstrikes against military installations, facilities, and arsenals belonging to Syria’s now-defunct army.
Israel has been widely condemned for the termination of the 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria and for exploiting the chaos in the Arab nation in the wake of Assad’s downfall to make a land grab.
The United Nations has condemned ongoing Israeli attacks inside Syrian territory and continuing violations in and around the buffer zone created as part of a 1974 ceasefire agreement with Damascus.
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