DAMASCUS/GAZA – Seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) officials were killed in the attack on Damascus, including senior Iranian commanders Mohammed Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, according to an official IRGC statement.
Haji Rahimi was named as the second commander killed in the attack on Iran’s consulate building in the Syrian capital, according to the statement shared by state news agency IRNA on Monday night.
Speaking to reporters in Damascus, Iranian ambassador Hossein Akbari alleged that the building “was targeted with six missiles from Israeli F-35 warplanes.”
“Between five and seven people were killed in the attack. I was in my office in the embassy at the time and witnessed the destruction myself,” Akbari said. Akbari added that Iranian diplomatic staff and military advisers were killed in the attack, and their names will be announced later. In a separate interview later on Monday, he said two Syrian policemen were among the people injured.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 32,845 people have been killed in the territory during the war between Israel and Palestinian militants. The toll includes at least 63 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 75,392 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
Monday’s toll update was released hours after the Israeli military withdrew from Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, after a two-week operation that saw heavy fighting. A spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defence agency said Monday that Israeli forces killed about 300 people in and around the hospital over the two weeks of the operation. The Israeli military said Saturday that “approximately 200 terrorists have been eliminated in the area of the hospital since the beginning of the activity”. Israeli forces on Monday pulled out of Gaza’s largest hospital complex after an intensive two-week military operation, leaving behind charred buildings and bodies strewn at the sprawling complex. Israel said it had battled Palestinian militants hiding inside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, killed at least 200 enemy fighters and recovered large stockpiles of weapons, explosives and cash.