French President Emmanuel Macron urged full support for the US plan to end the Gaza war, calling for a permanent ceasefire, release of all captives, and humanitarian access. Macron, however, blasted expanding West Bank settlements, which he said threaten Palestinian statehood and regional peace.
Published On 9 Oct 20259 Oct 2025
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Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria since December 2024, averaging one every three to four days.
The Israeli military says it shelled targets in Syria in response to a pair of projectiles that fell in open areas in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday.
Since December 10, 2024, just two days after the stunning collapse of more than 53 years of the al-Assad family, Israel has waged a campaign of aerial bombardment that has destroyed much of Syria’s military infrastructure, including major airports, air defence facilities, fighter jets and other strategic infrastructure.
Over the past six months, Israeli forces have launched more than 200 air, drone or artillery attacks across Syria, averaging an assault roughly every three to four days, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED).
The map below shows the ACLED-recorded Israeli attacks between December 8 and May 30.
The bulk of the Israeli attacks have been concentrated in the southern Syrian governorates of Deraa, Damascus and Quneitra, which account for nearly 60 percent of all recorded Israeli attacks.
In the immediate aftermath of al-Assad’s ouster, Israeli troops advanced into the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, including areas within the United Nations-monitored demilitarised zone, violating the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.
The incursion drew widespread international criticism. The UN, along with several Arab nations, condemned Israel’s actions as breaches of international law and violations of Syria’s sovereignty.
Despite these condemnations, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in February that Israeli forces would remain in the area indefinitely to “protect Israeli citizens” and “prevent hostile entities from gaining a foothold” near the border.
Satellite imagery captured in February and analysed by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit showed six military bases were being constructed in the UN-supervised buffer zone on the border with Syria.
Since taking power following the overthrow of al-Assad, President Ahmed al-Sharaa has consistently stated that his government seeks no conflict with Israel and will not permit Syria to be used by foreign actors to launch attacks.
He has condemned Israel’s continuing strikes on Syrian territory and its gradual expansion beyond the already-occupied Golan Heights.
While Israel’s air attacks on Syria have escalated in recent months, Israel has been attacking targets in Syria for years.
ACLED data collected since January 2017 shows how Israeli attacks have been steadily increasing.
The animated chart below shows the frequency of Israeli attacks from January 2017 to May 2025.
The Israeli military said it planned to ‘continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region’.
Israel has struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media have reported, in the first such aerial attack on the country in almost a month, the day after the United States envoy to Damascus said conflict between the neighbouring countries is “solvable”.
Syrian state media reported late Friday that one person was killed and three others injured by an Israeli air strike on the coastal city of Latakia.
The SANA news agency said earlier that the Israeli military targeted three sites in the countryside of the Latakia and Tartous governorates.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sites on the outskirts of Tartous and Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast.
The Israeli strike follows Syria acknowledging indirect talks with Israel earlier this month to calm tensions.
The Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike, saying it had “struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria”.
“In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck in the area of Latakia,” it said, adding that it would “continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens”.
The Israeli strike came a day after US envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack’s visit to Damascus aimed at rebuilding ties under Syria’s new administration, during which he said the conflict between Israel and Syria is “solvable” and needed to start with “dialogue”.
“I’d say we need to start with just a non-aggression agreement, talk about boundaries and borders,” Barrack told journalists on Thursday.
The two countries have technically been at war since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. A state of heightened tension and deep enmity between Israel and Syria accelerated during the 1967 war, which also drew in Egypt and Jordan, and Israel’s subsequent occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.
Israel has carried out frequent attacks in Syria both during the Bashar al-Assad rule and since his ouster.
Shortly before the fall of al-Assad’s regime, Israel seized more Syrian territory near the border, claiming it was concerned about President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s interim administration, which it has dismissed as “jihadist”.
During a meeting between US President Donald Trump and al-Sharaa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier in May, the US leader urged al-Sharaa to normalise relations with Israel.
While al-Sharaa has not commented on possible normalisation with Israel, he has stated his support for returning to the terms of a 1974 ceasefire agreement that created a United Nations buffer zone in the Golan Heights.