Outcry mounts over Israeli strikes in Damascus as UNSC plans emergency session

International condemnation has intensified following Israeli air strikes in Damascus, prompting the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting on Thursday afternoon at Syria's request.

The strikes came as Israel on Wednesday launched a series of raids targeting Syrian army positions in Damascus and Sweida, amid ongoing violence between Druze militias, Bedouin fighters and Syrian government forces in southern Syria.

Syria on Wednesday condemned the Israeli strikes that struck government buildings in the capital, calling them a "blatant violation" of national sovereignty and international law.

In a statement released by the foreign affairs authorities, Syria said the strikes left several civilians, including women and children, injured and caused extensive material damage.

The statement said the attacks reflect Israel's "systematic policy of escalation" and its ongoing efforts to destabilize Syria and the wider region, describing them as a clear breach of the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian law.

"Syria holds Israel fully responsible for this dangerous escalation," the statement read, adding that Syria will exercise its legitimate right to self-defense by all means permitted under international law.

The statement also called on the United Nations and the international community, including the Security Council, to condemn the repeated Israeli strikes on Syrian territory and to take "urgent and decisive measures" to curb what it called Israel's repeated violations.

Later on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement condemning the Israeli strikes.

"The Secretary-General further condemns Israel's escalatory air strikes on Sweida, Daraa and in the center of Damascus, as well as reports of the IDF's redeployment of forces in the Golan," Guterres's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli strikes were initially limited to Sweida province before extending to the capital. Israeli authorities said the attacks on Syrian forces and weapons aimed to "prevent the Syrian regime from harming" the Druze community, due to "the deep fraternal alliance with the Druze citizens of Israel and their familial and historical ties to the Druze in Syria."

The escalation in Sweida began on Sunday after armed members of a Bedouin tribe in the countryside of Sweida reportedly assaulted and robbed a young Druze man near the town of al-Masmiyah. The brutal attack sparked retaliatory kidnappings, spiraling into full-scale clashes between local Druze fighters, government troops, and Bedouin militias.

Since Sunday morning, the death toll from armed clashes, summary executions, and Israeli air strikes in Syria's Sweida province has risen to over 350, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Regional countries condemn Israeli raids

Countries across the Middle East on Wednesday condemned the Israeli air strikes targeting the Syrian Army General Command headquarters and the presidential palace area in central Damascus.

Egypt, in a statement from its Foreign Ministry, said repeated Israeli violations only serve to deepen tensions and represent a fundamental source of instability in Lebanon, Syria, and the broader region.

Algeria denounced the attack as a "flagrant violation of Syria's sovereignty and unity," and expressed full solidarity with Syria's right to defend its stability in line with the UN Charter and international law.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry affirmed its absolute rejection of endangering the lives of Syrian civilians and exacerbating their humanitarian suffering.

It stressed the need to de-escalate the situation, as it poses a direct threat to the security and stability of the region.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun affirmed his country's "full solidarity" with Syria and its people.

He renewed his call on the international community to pressure Israel to stop repeated attacks and to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state.

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday condemned the attacks, saying on his X post, "Unfortunately, this was all too predictable. Which capital is next?"

The Arab League denounced the attacks as "blatant assault" on the sovereignty of an Arab state that is a member of both the Arab League and the United Nations.

It also accused Israel of seeking to sow chaos in Syria by exploiting recent events in Sweida province.

U.S. expresses concern

Israel, which has its own Druze community, has presented itself as a defender of the group, although some analysts say that is a pretext for pursuing its own military goal of keeping Syrian government forces as far from their shared frontier as possible.

Following the fall of Syria's longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, the Israeli military took control of the UN-monitored demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights and conducted hundreds of strikes on military targets in Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed concern on Wednesday about the Israeli bombings, adding "we want it to stop."

The United States, which is a close ally of Israel and has been trying to reboot its relationship with Syria, said an agreement had been reached to restore calm in Sweida.

A State Department spokesperson said Washington was also asking Syria to "withdraw their military in order to enable all sides to de-escalate."

Rubio later announced on X that all sides had "agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end."

"This will require all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made and this is what we fully expect them to do," he wrote, without elaborating on the nature of the agreement.

Read more:

New ceasefire takes effect in Syria's Sweida following deadly clashes, Israeli air strikes

(With input from agencies)