TEL AVIV, July 16. /TASS/. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has reported delivering a strike on Syria’s military headquarters in Damascus.

According to the army press service, Israeli troops "struck the entrance of the Syrian regime's military headquarters in the area of Damascus in Syria."

The attack was carried out amid the escalation in the south of Syria where clashes between gunmen from Arab tribes and Druze self-defense forces supported by Israel are taking place.

"The IDF continues to monitor developments and the regime's actions against Druze civilians in southern Syria. In accordance with directives from the political echelon, the IDF is striking in the area and remains prepared for various scenarios," the press service added.

On Tuesday, Israel shelled the positions of Syrian government forces and Arab tribal militias in the provinces of Al-Suwayda and Deraa in the south of the country at least four times.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a statement on July 15, in which they indicated that they had ordered the army to attack the Syrian army forces deployed in the city of Al-Suwayda in southern Syria in support of the Syrian Druze.

Following the 2024 change of power in Damascus, Israel has repeatedly voiced its support for Syria’s Druze community and its self-defense in the event of a potential destabilization in Syria.

The Druze are a tight-knit ethnoreligious Arabic-speaking group living mainly in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan who adhere to a specific faith that split from Shiite Islam in the Middle Ages. There are 700,000 Druze in Syria, making the minority the Arab republic’s third-largest after Kurds and Alawites.