ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Tuesday that Israel had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria” with airstrikes since the toppling of Bashar al-Assad earlier this week. 

 

The war monitor SOHR also said that Israel carried out “around 250 air strikes on Syrian territory" over the last 48 hours to destroy the former regime's military capabilities.

 

"Israel destroyed the most important military sites in Syria, including Syrian airports and their warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and many weapons and ammunition depots in various locations in most Syrian governorates," the war monitor detailed, elaborating that near the port city of Latakia, Israel targeted an air defense facility and damaged Syrian naval ships as well as military warehouses.

 

Local media reported loud explosions in and around Damascus in the early hours of Tuesday. 

 

Bordering Syria, Israel has also sent troops into a buffer zone on the east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights after Assad's downfall.

 

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described the move as a "limited and temporary step" for "security reasons”.

 

Israel’s flurry of airstrikes since the fall of Assad over the past two days is higher than the total number of attacks Israel conducted on the neighboring country in 2024. 

 

The war monitor reported they had documented 176 Israeli attacks on Syria in 2024 before the toppling of Assad, including 150 airstrikes, destroying "nearly 326 targets, including buildings, weapons and ammunition warehouses, headquarters, centers, and vehicles. These strikes killed 416 combatants and injured 286 others. " 

 

Anti-government groups spearheaded by the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on Sunday took over the Syrian capital city of Damascus, after nearly a two-week offensive, sending Assad fleeing and ending over two decades of his rule and half a century of the Baath party rule in the country.

 

Soon after the fall of Assad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the collapse of the Damascus regime as a “historic day for the Middle East” while cautioning that that regime’s downfall is “fraught with significant dangers.”