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AT LEAST nine people were reported killed in Israeli strikes in south-west Syria today as Israel accused Turkey of trying to build a “protectorate” in Syria.
The official Syria Arab News Agency said those who died in the strikes were civilians but gave no details.
Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they were armed residents of Daraa province.
Israel had also attacked five cities in Syria on Wednesday night, including over a dozen strikes near a strategic air base in the city of Hama, where Turkey, a key ally of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, is reportedly interested in establishing a military presence.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement today that the strikes had resulted in the “near-total destruction of the Hama military airport and the injury of dozens of civilians and military personnel.”
Far-right Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accused Turkey of playing a “negative role” in Syria.
“They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that this is their intention,” he told a press conference in Paris.
“We don’t think that it was good when Syria was an Iranian proxy and we don’t think that Syria should be a Turkish protectorate.”
There was no immediate response from Ankara.
Israel has seized parts of south-west Syria and created a buffer zone there since the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad.
While Israel claims that this is a security measure, critics say the occupation is illegal and obstructs any long-term stability in Syria.
Meanwhile, tensions are still simmering among the Druze community in the south and the Alawites, on the Mediterranean coast, remain fearful following massacres of about 1,000 Alawite and Christian civilians in the area by regime forces.
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said: “Our evidence indicates that government-affiliated militias [have] deliberately targeted civilians from the Alawite minority in gruesome reprisal attacks, shooting individuals at close range in cold blood.”
