Israel's military carried out an airstrike Thursday on a residential building on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus that it said was a command center of the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the airstrike
The military alleged that the command center has been used to direct attacks against Israel and vowed to “respond forcefully” to the presence of Palestinian militant groups inside Syria.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said the building targeted is located in the suburb of Dummar, northwest of the capital. It said one person was killed.
Defense Minister Israel Katz warned in a statement that “whenever terrorist activity is organized against Israel,” Syria’s new President Ahmad al-Sharaa “will find air force planes circling above him and attacking terrorist targets.”
Also Thursday, United Nations-backed experts accused Israel of “the systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence” in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva rejected the allegations and accused the The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which was created by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, of relying on “second-hand, single, uncorroborated sources.”
Israel has refused to cooperate with the commission, accusing it and the council of being biased against it.