Syria urges UNSC to slam Israeli invasion of its territory

In a letter addressed to the UN Security Council on Monday, Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry urged the body to hold the Tel Aviv regime accountable for the attacks, hours after Syria’s air defenses intercepted Israeli missiles coming from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights.

According to the Syrian military, the missiles were fired hours before midnight on Sunday at targets in the vicinity of Damascus.

Israel often targets military positions inside Syria, particularly those affiliated with Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah, which has played a significant role in helping the Syrian army in its battle against foreign-backed terrorists since 2011.

The Tel Aviv regime mostly keeps quiet about the attacks on Syrian territories, which many view as a knee-jerk reaction to the Syrian government’s increasing success in curbing terrorism.

“This new aggression comes two days after [US air coward aggression] on Syrian sovereignty in Dayr al-Zawr province on the Syrian-Iraqi borders in light of the support and protection of the US successive administrations and some western countries to Israel,” the letter read.

Late on Thursday, US warplanes conducted airstrikes on areas in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr near the Iraqi border. It was the first of its kind under President Joe Biden. At least one person was killed and four people wounded.

“Syria reaffirms that it will not hesitate to practice its right in defending its land, its people, and its sovereignty by all means guaranteed by the UN Charter and the rules of the international law,” the foreign ministry said in its letter to the Security Council.

It added that Israel carried out its flagrant attack based on systematized allegations and lies that are being used by all aggressors, including the US, against Syria’s sovereignty.

The letter affirmed that “those pretexts are nothing but open attempts to practice misleading and distort the facts and to cover Israel’s responsibility for its dangerous aggressive approach, its practicing of state terrorism and its continued support for armed terrorist groups.”

Early last month, Israeli air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missiles were intercepted by the Syrian air defense systems over the southwestern province of Quneitra.

In early January, a similar attack was conducted by Israel on the southwestern town of al-Zabadani in the Rif Dimashq governorate, which claimed the life of a Syrian soldier and wounded three others. Some two weeks later, the city of Dayr al-Zawr and the town of al-Bukamal were targeted by Israeli airstrikes.

The second round of airstrikes was conducted with intelligence provided by Washington, according to a US official.