Israeli Jets Fire Missiles near Damascus: Syrian Army

Israeli jets fired two missiles on an area west of the Syrian capital of Damascus Wednesday morning, causing no casualties in an attack mounted from Lebanese airspace, the Syrian army said Wednesday.

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A Syrian military source said Israeli planes launched the airstrike at dawn, and the missiles fell on the Saboura area.

The attack was an attempt to "divert attention away from the successes of the Syrian Arab Army and to raise the morale of the terrorist gangs," the military source was quoted as saying by the Syrian state agency SANA.

Later in the day, reports on Arab media outlets said the attack was targeting a Hezbollah convoy in the area. While there is no official statement from any side on the target, Sabboura is close to the Damascus-Beirut highway and is often used by Hezbollah.

The Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen TV channel also said the attack was an attempt to lift the spirits of "terrorist organizations" in wake of the Syrian government’s recent successes against the rebels in Aleppo.

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The news comes as the Syrian army has made gains since last week, bringing whole districts back under government control leading to a human exodus as thousands have fled their neighborhoods near the rapidly shifting front lines.

Israel has yet to comment on the attack, however, its army has carried out several raids in the country over the course of the five-year Syrian conflict. Most past airstrikes targeted weapons belonging to Hezbollah, which has been fighting in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad.

Israel sees Hezbollah, which controls most of Lebanon’s south at the Israeli border, as one of its most dangerous enemies in the region after the resistance group managed to end Tel Aviv’s occupation of Lebanon’s south in 2006.

Since 2011, the Syrian conflict has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people and displaced millions of the country’s 13 million-population, unleashing a major refugee crisis in Europe.