Tehran:

The death toll in an airstrike on an annex to the Iranian embassy in Damascus on Monday that was widely blamed on Israel has risen to 11, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the British Observatory, said: “The death toll from the Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy annex has risen to 11 people: eight Iranians, two Syrians and 1 Lebanese, they are all fighters, no civilians,” , told AFP.

The watch group had previously said eight people had died.

Israel said it would not comment on the reported attack, but Iranian officials vowed a tough response, fearing the war in Gaza would spark further violence between Israel and its Iranian allies.

Seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed, including Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and another senior officer, Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British war monitor, said “Israeli missiles… destroyed the Iranian embassy annex”, killing eight people, including several guards.

Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, told Iranian state television that “at least five people were killed in the attack by F-35 fighter jets,” which fired six missiles at the building, but the casualty toll was smaller. Low.

An AFP reporter saw that an outbuilding had collapsed, sirens were blaring in Damascus’s upscale Maze district, and emergency services were busy searching for victims under the rubble.

Security personnel cordoned off the site of earth-moving equipment to clear the wreckage and remove charred vehicles from the road outside, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers.

The Syrian Ministry of Defense said, “The attack destroyed the entire building, killing and injuring everyone inside. Work is currently underway to recover bodies from under the rubble and rescue the wounded.”

Iranian state television said Zahedi, a senior commander of the “Quds Force”, the overseas operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was also among the victims.

Zahedi had served as leader of the Quds Force in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, the watch group said, adding that he was killed along with his deputies, aides and the chiefs of staff of the Quds Force in the three countries.

Two other Guard members and two Iranian advisers were also killed in the attack, the Observatory said.

The target building is adjacent to the Iranian embassy, ​​whose facade is decorated with a large portrait of Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s Middle East military operations who was involved in the January 2020 U.S. drone strikes in Iraq. Killed.

The attack in Damascus was the fifth in a week against Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is backed by Iran, Israel’s long-time nemesis in the region.

Syria’s state news agency SANA reported earlier that “our air defense systems encountered enemy targets near Damascus.”

Iranian Ambassador Akbari vowed that the attack “will lead to a decisive response on our part,” adding that “Israeli’s attack on the Iranian consulate shows the reality of the Zionist entity, which does not recognize international law and does not seek to achieve its The target did everything inhumane.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdullahian called for “a serious response from the international community.”

– ‘Heinous attack’ –

An AFP reporter said that after the attack, only the door remained of the building, which read “Consular Department of the Embassy of Iran”.

Windows of buildings within a 500-meter radius were shattered and many parked cars were damaged in the blast.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad also condemned the attack after visiting the scene.

“We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus, which resulted in the death of many innocent people,” Mekdad said in a statement carried by the Syrian News Agency.

The war in Gaza began on October 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, devastating the coastal area and causing almost daily cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah.

Israel has also struck targets in Syria, mainly army positions and positions of Iranian-backed fighters.

Hamas condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms,” ​​calling it a “dangerous escalation.”

Moscow, which along with Tehran is an ally of Damascus, accused the “Israeli Air Force” of “unacceptable attacks on the Iranian consulate in Syria.”

Three days before the Damascus attack, the Observatory reported that an Israeli attack killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven Hezbollah members.

Observers said this was the highest number of casualties suffered by the Syrian army in an Israeli attack since the war between Israel and Hamas began.

“From an Israeli perspective, Syria and Lebanon have become an extended battlefield,” Riyad Khawaji, director of the Institute for Military Analysis of the Near East and Gulf, told AFP after Friday’s attack.

An unprecedented attack by Palestinian militants on Oct. 7 sparked the bloodiest Gaza war in history, killing about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign aimed at destroying Hamas has killed at least 32,845 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)