DAMASCUS - An Israeli strike on Damascus killed five people in a building where "Iran-aligned leaders" were meeting on Saturday, a war monitor said, as regional tensions soar over the Israel-Hamas war.
"An Israeli missile strike targeted a four-storey building, killing five people... and destroying the whole building where Iran-aligned leaders were meeting," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria said the targeted neighbourhood is known to be a high-security zone home to leaders of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and pro-Iran Palestinian factions.
"They were for sure targeting senior members" of those groups, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
The mid-morning strike, which caused a large plume of smoke to billow into the sky, was also reported by Syrian state media.
"An attack targeted a residential building in the Mazzeh neighbourhood in Damascus, resulting from an Israeli aggression," the official SANA news agency reported. It did not say if there were any casualties.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the destroyed building was cordoned off with ambulances, firefighters and Syrian Arab Red Crescent rescue teams all present at the site.
Civil defence were busy searching for survivors under the rubble of the totally collapsed building, he said.
The Mazzeh area is also home to the United Nations' headquarters, embassies and restaurants.
During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions.
But it has intensified attacks since the war between Israel and Hamas, which like Lebanon's Hezbollah movement is an ally of Iran, began on October 7.