Six Syrian troops killed latest Israeli strikes near Damascus

Israeli drone strikes have killed at least six Syrian soldiers in the Damascus countryside, Syrian state TV reported early on Wednesday.

The attack represents another escalation in Tel Aviv’s campaign of cross-border aggression and efforts to deepen its occupation of Syrian territory.

Damascus has condemned the continued Israeli violations of its sovereignty this week, reporting that 60 Israeli soldiers entered Syrian land near Mount Hermon, close to the border with Lebanon.

The Israeli army claimed its troops were on a “routine operation” in southern Syria and not in Beit Jinn, the area Syria identified.

Syria’s foreign ministry condemned recent strikes, warning that they pose a direct threat to “regional peace and security.”

Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al Shaibani has accused Israel of installing military positions and intelligence stations in occupied areas, saying they are part of Tel Aviv’s “expansionist and partition plans”.

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The remarks by Al Shaibani come as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly promotes his vision for a “Greater Israel”, a project that seeks to colonise Palestinian territories and large parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since capturing it in 1967 and has steadily tightened control over the area.

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad last December, Israel has seized over 400sq km of additional Syrian territory, including Mount Hermon’s summit, a strategic peak rising more than 2,800 metres above sea level.

Israeli officials have celebrated these land grabs as part of a so-called “defensive strategy,” but no attacks have been launched from this region in decades. Critics say Israel’s campaign is a brazen act of settler-colonial expansion and part of a wider policy of regional destabilisation.

The escalation comes as Israel wages a genocidal war in Gaza, now entering its 23rd month, and continues its occupation of southern Lebanon. In January, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed to hold Mount Hermon “indefinitely,” signalling Tel Aviv’s intent to entrench its grip on more Syrian territory.