The Israeli army announced on Saturday, May 03, that it had deployed forces in areas in southern Syria, stating it was “prepared to prevent hostile forces from entering Druze villages and towns.”
In a statement, the Israeli army said its forces were “continuing to monitor developments while maintaining readiness for defence and various scenarios,” without specifying the exact areas of deployment.
The army also noted that, overnight, five Syrian citizens from the Druze community were evacuated from inside Syrian territory to receive medical treatment at Ziv Medical Centre in Safed, northern Israel.
Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Ati strongly condemned the Israeli airstrike on the vicinity of the presidential palace in the Syrian capital, Damascus, which took place on Friday, May 2.
“The Israeli raid on the area next to the presidential palace in Damascus is a new violation of Syrian sovereignty and the unity and territorial integrity of Syria,” Abdel Ati said during a meeting with directors of United Nations regional offices in Cairo, according to a statement from Egypt’s foreign ministry.
Related: Drone Strike and Regional Escalations in Southern Syria
Earlier on Saturday, May 3, the Israeli army disclosed the targets of its air raids carried out across several Syrian governorates the previous evening.
“We bombed a military site, anti-aircraft guns, and surface-to-air missile infrastructure in Syria,” the Israeli army stated on X, adding, “The Israeli army will continue its operations as necessary to defend Israeli civilians.”
According to the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), Israeli aircraft conducted approximately 20 airstrikes overnight from Friday into Saturday, targeting sites in Damascus, Daraa, Hama, and Latakia.
SANA reported that one person was killed in four raids near Harasta Military Hospital in the Damascus countryside, while four others were injured in a strike near the town of Shatha in the al-Ghab Plain area of northwestern Hama.
Other targets of the Israeli raids included a military site affiliated with the ousted Syrian regime in the al-Tall area of northern Damascus countryside, another site in the Mothbin area, and the 175th Regiment along with the Air Defence Battalion in the Izraa area of northern Daraa.
Israeli aircraft also struck the Jabal al-Shaara area in the Latakia countryside, in northwestern Syria. No information on casualties from that strike was immediately available.
Earlier on Friday, an Israeli airstrike targeted a farm in the western countryside of Suwayda, in southern Syria, killing four people.
At dawn that same day, an Israeli warplane struck a site near the presidential palace in Damascus. The attack was confirmed in a joint statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz.
The statement emphasised that the Israeli strike on Damascus “carried a clear message to the Syrian government,” and asserted that Israel “will not allow any threat to the Druze.”
