Israeli Bombing, HTS Ethnic-Cleansing Ravage Syria
BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- An Israeli airstrike in the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday killed 11 people, according to a war monitor, as the Zionist regime continues to target Syrian infrastructure even after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike targeted a weapons depot that belonged to Syria forces near the industrial town of Adra, northeast of the capital. The observatory said at least 11 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
Israel, which has launched hundreds of airstrikes over Syria since 2011, rarely acknowledges them. It claims its targets are groups that backed Assad.
Militants and takfiri terrorists who ousted Assad in an onslaught in early December have stood by and watched, with their leaders saying they do not seek a war with the Zionist regime.
Elsewhere, Turkish-backed militants attacked near the strategic northern border town of Kobani, which is under the control of U.S.-backed Kurdish militants following weekslong clashes.
The SDF shared a video of a rocket attack that destroyed what it said was a radar system south of the city of Manbij, which the Turkish-back group captured earlier this month.
A rights advocacy organization said Christians have been threatened by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group to evacuate the southwestern Syrian town of Maaloula, in what has been decried as an act of ethnic cleansing.
“Syrian Christians in the ancient Christian town of Maaloula, Syria, are being threatened to leave the town by the AlQaeda/ISIS terrorists that have taken over Syria,” the Iraqi Christian Foundation said in a post on X on Sunday.
“An ethnic cleansing is happening in this ancient Christian town where Aramaic is still spoken. Pray for the Christians of Syria,” the 0rights organization added.
The mission of the Iraqi Christian Foundation is to advocate for the human, legal, and political rights of Iraqi Christians and other Christians across the West Asia region.
The organization also provides humanitarian aid to Iraqi and Syrian Christian genocide victims.
Other rights activists earlier warned about the lack of Internet access or communication and the unfolding of a massacre in Maaloula, the last town in Syria where Aramaic — Jesus Christ’s language — is still spoken.
The HTS administration has repeatedly claimed to respect the beliefs and rights of all sects and religions in Syria.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in Latakia, Tartus, Homs, Hama, and Qardaha in condemnation of the militants’ desecration of an Alawite shrine in Aleppo last week, but the HTS violently attacked them, leading to deadly confrontations.