Two Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders killed in Israel strike on Syria

Two senior Islamic Jihad figures were killed in an Israeli strike on Syria this week, said on Saturday the Palestinian group which has fought against Israel in Gaza alongside Hamas.

An Islamic Jihad statement confirmed that Abdel Aziz Minawi and Rasmi Yusuf Abu Issa were killed alongside “a group of the movement’s cadres” in the Thursday air raid on offices and apartments.

Earlier on Saturday, a source from the group told AFP that the two leaders and a third member were killed in the attack on Qudsaya, in the Damascus area.

Minawi, born in 1945, was described by in the group’s statement as a “prominent leader”, and Abu Issa, born in 1972, as Islamic Jihad’s “head of Arab relations”.

The group said the bodies were recovered on Saturday morning.

It vowed that their deaths would “only increase our firmness and determination to continue the resistance” against Israel.

Israeli authorities, who rarely comment on individual strikes in Syria, claimed responsibility for the Thursday attack on Islamic Jihad.

Contacted by AFP on Saturday, the Israeli military declined to comment on the leaders’ deaths.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said that Israeli strikes on Thursday in and around Damascus killed 23 people.

The Britain-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria, said 13 people including civilians and Iran-backed fighters were killed in a strike on the upscale Damascus district of Mazzeh.

A separate attack on the capital’s outskirts killed 10 Islamic Jihad militants, according to the Observatory.

Syrian state media said Israel struck the Mazzeh district again on Friday.

Attacks carried out by Israel have intensified in Syria since the start of its war in Gaza in October last year, including in areas near the Lebanese border.

Scores have been killed in such attacks since.